Unleash the Fury of the Djinn
by Feonyx
Summary: Chapter Eleven: In which the Djinn and Adavir face off for the lives of the Adepts and the fate of Lunpa in a climactic clash of fire, water, shadow, and the final word of a fallen hero. It is time for the fury to be unleashed...
1. Brave New Whorled

**Chapter One: Brave New Whorled**

                A few hours past sunset, a patch of shadowy plain near the city of Lunpa lit up. It was a massive blaze, and even from a great height, an individual could probably see the suddenly-illuminated figures around it, leaping away before they got scorched. 

                "I never expected to say this while fully conscious, but next time, Garet lights the fire," said Ivan from behind a rock. Sheba, crouching beside him, nodded fervently, her blue eyes very wide. 

                Jenna was the only one still standing by the fire, untouched. "It was only Dragon Fume. Not like I launched a Searing Beam at it or something." 

                "Jenna," said Felix, "it was kindling, not a Druj. It wasn't going anywhere." 

                "Are you implying something?" asked Jenna. 

                "Definitely not," said Garet, walking past Felix and cutting him off. 

                "I do not think I have ever met a completely stable Mars Adept," Picard commented. Isaac watched his friends contentedly, giving Mia's hand a squeeze as they approached the now-safe fire. It was good to be on the road again. It did count as the road, even though, with Coal and Zephyr's help, the Adepts could have reached Vale again long before sunrise. This territory was at least as hostile as anywhere else they had been, with the possible exception of facing down the Fusion and Doom Dragons. 

                "I can't believe you actually want to set up camp near a city filled with people who are going to want us dead very soon," muttered Ivan, flapping open his bedroll near the warmth of the flames. 

                "We've been travelling all day," Sheba pointed out. "It's no good to just rush in there now." 

                "Besides, we're too far out for the Lunpans to know we're coming," Isaac added. "And we'd better know what we're going to do next before the night's over." 

                "Tell me sleep is going to factor into this at some point," pleaded Garet. 

                "Of course," said Isaac. Garet relaxed slightly, leaning back against a rock. "Probably, what, an hour or two, around dawn." The Mars Adept sat up for a moment, but quickly realised Isaac wasn't serious. Jenna swatted him lightly for falling for it to begin with. 

                "And I suppose you thought you could leave us out of it?" asked Bane, walking into the light. He preferred to materialise out of sight and make a different sort of dramatic entrance than the other Djinn. Torch, Luff, and Dew sparked into being around him. 

                "What do you want, old man?" asked Isaac, weary but cheerful. 

                "To know exactly what it is you're planning in the morning. I don't even think you have a plan, since I don't know about it," Bane replied. 

                "Why do those four always get to represent the Djinn?" asked Felix. 

                "They are oldest," Picard pointed out. 

                "Do we really want any more of them out here?" asked Jenna, grinning. 

                "If you were my Adept I'd have a word with you on that one," said Torch, but when she realised she sounded more than a little like a stern grandmother, she shut up swiftly. 

                "Not to dredge up ancient history or anything," said Ivan, "but we do recall that Lunpa's been sending out raiding parties, right? That's the whole reason we're out here." 

                "Raiding parties attacking caravans and cities," Felix said, completing Ivan's sentence. "Who would attack simple travellers?" 

                "Beats me, so if we meet any, then we'll know they're safe, but we complicated travellers might want to be a little more cautious," Ivan countered. "I mean, we are planning to break in." 

                "Ought to be fun," said Garet, stretching out further, if such a thing was possible. "Climbing Lighthouses and slaying dragons, crossing deserts, going through forests-" 

                "-And one swamp-" Jenna interjected, shuddering at the memory of Taopo. 

                "-And over oceans," Garet went on, and both the Mars Adepts shared another shudder. "Those are all good, but I don't think we've ever actually tried to break into a fortress and wreak havoc." 

                "What about the last time we broke into Lunpa?" asked Mia. She shook her head. "Same city, even. This place is just trouble." 

                "It's a lot more reinforced now, if the people from Vault are right. They said it was getting to be like a castle, but better defended," Felix pointed out. 

                "I would be surprised to see any defences that could do more than slow the eight of us," Picard pointed out. "The Lunpans likely do not expect such an attack." 

                "If it needs to be an attack," said Dew. "Do remember that last time, the villagers were as much against Dodonpa as we were. Simple show of force could be enough to make them negotiate." 

                "Can the show of force be the part where we blow the gates past Imil?" asked Garet, hopefully. 

                "More likely we should avoid a direct confrontation," said Picard. 

                "Getting inside and finding whoever's in charge without any of the guards knowing could be even more impressive than a Pyroclasm on their doorstep," Sheba agreed. 

                "Be reasonable, Sheba," said Garet. "Nothing's more impressive than a Pyroclasm on your doorstep." 

                "Whatever we do, the fact is that the Lunpans have become a lot more dangerous recently, and we're going to stop them. Barricading and reinforcing the city, all these raiders making half of Angara a dangerous place to be- I think they're preparing for something big, and we're not going to let them get that far," said Isaac. He looked around at his friends- not many people could claim to having seven friends with whom they would trust their life without reservation. They could handle anything. 

                As he watched the sparks from the fire float up into the night sky until he couldn't tell the difference between the sparks and the stars, completely unaware of the threat awaiting them within the walls of Lunpa, Isaac of Vale feared nothing.

                The sky on the following morning was a little cloudy as the universe once again totally failed to be filled with omens of what was about to happen.  Lunpa at least had the courtesy to be a looming and foreboding presence, especially the massive cluster of towers and walls that formed what could best be called the Lunpa Fortress.  It was dark stone and armor-plated in most places, with the general feel of a place that would simply need repainting after Armageddon.

                The village, however, still covered more ground than the fortress.  There were very few built houses in Lunpa, since it had begun as a thieves' headquarters.  Most homes and stores were built into the uneven land; no doubt they were very inconspicuous as caves to hide in.

                The Adepts stayed in the forests, slipping around the side of the walled city, looking for any place where they might slip inside Lunpa without being noticed.  The tunnel was long closed off, meaning that a new method of entrance was needed.  And eventually the clouds and spikes topping the wall clicked in Sheba's mind.

                "I've got it," she said, and the others stopped.  "Ivan, help me out here."  The two Sorcerers stood facing each other, eyes closed, and glowed with the faint purple light of Jupiter Adepts reaching into their element.  A bit slowly, but much faster than nature tended to act, the clouds grew and thickened.  Lunpa and a large area of the surrounding mountains were cast into deep shadow.

                "Do you really think this is dark enough?" asked Ivan.

                "I don't think it's going to get any darker," Sheba replied.

                "Looks like it could get wetter, though.  Or possibly very lightning-filled," said Felix, warily.

                "Those aren't storm clouds, just very dark… um…" Ivan trailed off.

                "Looks like cumulostratus," said Garet.  The others looked at him.  He looked back.

                "What, exactly, are the clouds for, then?" asked Isaac, breaking the spell.

                "Give me a rope and I'll show you," Sheba replied.  Felix handed a length over wordlessly, wondering what she was doing.  Sheba looked carefully at the top edge of the wall, lined with innumerable prongs and generally unpleasant metal shapes.  She raised the rope.  "_Lash!"  The end of the rope flew up to the wall and tied around one of the many spikes.  "__Cloak!"  Drawing on the power of the Cloak Ball that Mia carried, Sheba twisted the shadows around her until all that was visible was a faint Psynergetic outline of light.  To non-Adepts, Sheba had vanished completely.  Cloak only worked in deep shadows, but apparently the thick cloud cover was good enough._

                Sheba scaled the wall quickly, pulling herself to the top of the rope and level with the many obstacles meant to give any casual intruder a severe difficulty finding gloves with the right number of fingers in the future.  She drew the Tungsten Mace from her pack and, after a few moments of almost-quiet battering, those same sharp prongs began to rain down near the Adepts, who took an intelligent dozen steps back.

                Once a small gap was cleared, Ivan picked up a thought from Sheba and relayed it to the others.  "Sheba says the ground's close on the other side.  Cloak yourself and just climb right over."

                "I just hope we're not going to get any high, cloud-sweeping winds soon," said Jenna.

                "Don't you ever stop complaining?" asked Ivan as he faded from normal view.

                "Not in my lifetime, and I'm older than her," Felix responded, already little more than a Psynergy outline.  One at a time, not wanting to test the rope more than necessary, they climbed to the top and dropped down the short distance to the ground on the other side.

                Isaac checked to make sure everyone was there, then took a careful step away from the wall.  He stopped.  Something had just tingled.  Severely.  His head was feeling… a little foggy… and the world seemed… a little duller than usual…

                His hand flickered white and reappeared.  After a moment, so did the rest of him.  Isaac's legs buckled beneath him, and he collapsed to the grass.  "Isaac!" hissed Jenna, darting forward to make sure he wasn't badly hurt or afflicted by something.   Then the same feeling struck her, and the Cloak faded.

                While the fortress was certainly the more impressive part of Lunpa, there was still the village, and it was like any other such settlement.  So the presence of two unconscious strangers caused a bit of comment among those who noticed them.

                No, Mia realised, not like _any other settlement.  Because even though the villagers noticed Isaac and Jenna, they made no moves toward them, nor did they stop even to gawk a little.  There was something controlling them all.  Not Psynergy or anything so grandiose.  They were all afraid.  Terrified of… of being out of… out of…  _

                Thinking was getting harder.  So was focusing her eyes… and things were getting dark…  Out of line.  That was it.  They were afraid of being singled out by someone…

                Out of Psynergy.  That was it.  Another it.  Something was very wrong. The six remaining Adepts flashed white and their Cloak Psynergy broke, revealing them all to the Lunpans.  The Adepts staggered, finding it difficult even to stay balanced, and while they were so incapacitated, a voice shouted orders.

                "Go, you amateurs, go, go, go!  Don't let them back on their feet!"  And from the under-hill houses poured a battalion of Lunpan soldiers, all armoured and armed for serious combat.  Picard managed one act of defiance against the strange weakness that had attacked the Adepts, stirred into motion by the sudden and very pointy danger.  He pulled a Mist Potion from his pack and hurled it at the ground, where it burst and unleashed its minor alchemy.

                The soldiers stopped, suddenly facing a small, concentrated area of green fog where they had just seen targets who couldn't fight back (the best kind) a moment before.  When it did clear, even Isaac and Jenna were standing again, and the others looked shaken, but ready to fight.

                "He didn't mention this," said one of the soldiers to his commanding officer.  "What do we do?"

                "Exactly what we were told," the leader replied, grimly.  He looked back at all of the men under his command, and gave them a glare that gave a very clear message: no matter how easy it would be, don't kill any of them, or you'll be buried in more than one grave.  That done, he gave a signal with one gauntleted hand and ran at the Adepts, halberd ready.

                Even still disoriented from whatever force had beaten their Cloak, Isaac was ready for combat, though he was worried when he noticed that the Sol Blade's customary golden glow was missing when he drew the weapon.

                There was time to find out what had happened later.  Right now, Isaac's problems were in the form of a charging infantryman with a pike and the sort of attitude that said the likelihood the talking him out of it was slightly less than Bane relinquishing his self-declared rank as King of Djinn.  No matter, Isaac had seen worse, often with wings or way more heads than necessary.

                He spun to the side while stepping closer to his attacker, slashing downward with the sort of force that would, ordinarily, have chopped the halberd in half, an act that often gave the wielder pause, to say the least.  Ordinarily.  But something dragged behind, and Isaac's footing twisted on itself.  He was on his back before the slash ever connected.

                _He had **tripped**._

                Shocked at the unexpected fall, and worse, his failure moments into combat, Isaac deflected the downward strike and rolled to his feet on autopilot.  How could he _trip_?  Worse, Isaac noticed that the Sol Blade felt unusually heavy in his hands, and his motions were much slower than usual.  Another soldier, carrying a broadsword rather than a polearm, struck a hit against Isaac's backplate before he even realised the opponent's presence, and the pain shot through his torso like he had been hit with a boat.

                "_Shine Plasma!" shouted Ivan as the soldiers were upon him.  Its sense of theatre still totally missing, the universe ignored him, and didn't even bother to make the lack of lightning explosions dramatic.  Instead, the nearest soldier smacked him with the shaft of his pike and kept moving.  Ivan went down and stayed there, out cold.  Sheba thought clearly enough that she didn't bother casting anything herself, but strong attacks from too many enemies quickly disarmed her and left her lying unconscious beside Ivan._

                Next to be caught in the tide of soldiers was Felix, who was battered to the ground by a flurry of attacks dealt with democratic fervor – one soldier, one injury.  But the Lunpans, having been lucky and caught three of the eight Adepts before they were ready, were overconfident.  That changed quickly when they reached Garet and Jenna, fighting back to back.  The soldiers were like a great serpent, swallowing everything in their path.  They had just swallowed an ember.

                Garet noted with some concern that his Stellar Axe lacked its usual explosive glow of Psynergy, but it was still, as Felix liked to put it, 'bloody efficient at cutting things', which was his highest praise for any weapon.  More than a few shields were split through in the fury of battle, and a fair share of weapons were reduced to kindling and forge materials, too.  

                None of the Adepts liked killing people, but wouldn't sacrifice one of their friends for the sake of any enemy.  Fortunately, it seemed that neither situation was coming up – none of the soldiers stayed in individual combat long enough to need to be cut down, and they didn't do anything more than knock out any of the Adepts.

                That wasn't to say that the Lunpans weren't losing fighters- a fair ring of them now surrounded Jenna and Garet's feet after being bashed and thrown down with customary Mars wrath.  The two fought well together, often ducking and dodging in ways that left the attacking soldier vulnerable to their ally.  Once Jenna actually leapt and rolled across Garet's bent back; when they came back up, each Lunpan was now facing a different opponent with a very different fighting style, and they couldn't compensate.

                Picard, Isaac, and Mia were each carving their own little pockets of chaos among the soldiers.  Picard in particular found himself fencing with the commander of the group, who now wielded a flanged mace, his halberd having proved too soft to hold against a Mythril Blade.  The Lemurian's style was disturbing at least to any opponent- no openings were left, even after an attack.  Every strike became a guard at the last moment, and every motion led into another.

                They were techniques that had halted many opponents in their tracks, making his sword a whirling hazard that hurtling unsettlingly in front of the attacker.  Anyone duelling with Picard soon found themselves believing that he only bothered to make contact with the enemy's weapon because he liked the sound it made.  Such a thought had plenty of evidence, too, considering that the blade clashed against the mace at least twice a second.

                At last, Picard made a swift, strong blow at the right point on his enemy's weapon, and the mace flew from the commander's hand, landing with a dull thud and denting the ground.  The Lunpan stiffened as Picard's sword came up to point at his throat.

                "Kill me, then!" he shouted defiantly.

                "I would rather not.  Stop the attack," Picard ordered him.

                "I would rather die!" the commander repeated, and something stung Picard in the chest, near his shoulder.  

                A short length of wood with small feathers protruded from his tunic.  He looked up in time to see an archer give him a mocking salute from the top of a hill and mutter 'Oh, you blasted-' before collapsing as the sleeping poison took effect.

                "A bit faster next time," the commander muttered, though the archer couldn't possibly have heard him.  "What if he had agreed?"

                Garet was next, still not quite understanding what had happened to them upon entering the village.  His speed, usually unusual for his mass, was back down to where it ought to be according to normal laws, and he was set upon by a pair of Lunpans, one with dual short swords and the other a warhammer.  He was caught after only a few moves, the Stellar Axe locked by the thrusting attacks from the swords, and suffered a glancing blow to the head from the hammer that was enough to drop him from the fight.

                Mia found her usual, acrobatic style of combat difficult to maintain, for reasons that none of the Adepts understood yet.  Clotho's Distaff was still a fair weapon, though, and had clocked a number of Lunpans into the land of dreams when someone came barrelling up behind her.  The lieutenant, a large man with better understanding of the situation than most of the soldiers, drew a dagger and held it against her neck.  "Isaac of Vale!  Surrender or she dies!"

                Isaac, who had been the greatest source of agony on the field so far, paused in mid swing.  The Lunpan dropped anyway, having already been struck repeatedly by the Sol Blade's unyielding side.

                "And you wouldn't kill her if I did?" he asked, skeptically.  Mia grinned, if grimly.

                "Of course not.  We have no wish to kill any of you.  Your other friends, those already felled, are still alive, if you need proof."

                Isaac was silent for a long time, and Mia looked more interested in his answer than the lieutenant.  Eventually, he dropped the Sol Blade.  "All right," he said, struck again by the strange weakness in all of them.  Mia looked shocked.  The lieutenant grinned.

                "Isaac, what are you doing?!" demanded Jenna, staring at him.  He looked up in time to see the attacker coming at her from behind.  Even as Isaac called out a warning, a gauntleted fist has crashed down against her head, and she collapsed on top of several beaten Lunpans.

                The lieutenant's hand moved quickly, sheathing his dagger and drawing instead a small leather object, which he smacked against Mia's temple before she could reached up to wrench his arm out of its socket, something he had no doubt she could do.  Again, Isaac barely started to cry out when someone near him did something very similar, and then all was dark.

                The Lunpan soldiers gathered up the Adepts, as well as their fallen comrades, and returned to the fortress.  Aside from everyone avoiding that region of the village while the battle took place, it would have looked to any outside observer like a normal day in Lunpa.  And once the soldiers were gone, they walked freely there, too.  No sign was left the Adepts had even tried to enter the village, or had been caught by a Psynergy-nullifying field just inside the walls.

                But, fortunately, there was an outside observer.  A great many of them.  Coincidentally, they were also the only sign that the Adepts had tried to enter the village, though they had found themselves outside the city wall when they finally came back together.

                Bane looked around at the rest of the seventy-two Djinn with a confused and angered (for Bane, the first always led to the second) expression on his face.  "What in the name of Sol and all the Spirits just happened?!"

**[Author's Notes]**  That's right.  The Adepts are in serious trouble, and it shall fall to their seventy-two assistants to save the day, with a good quantity of chaos, insanity, and blowing things up thrown into the mix.  To expedite future chapters (to convince me to update) press the button. 


	2. All You Need Is Luff

**Chapter Two: All You Need Is Luff**

                "I just don't get it," said Crystal.  "Everywhere feels normal except over that wall."  The seventy-two Djinn were staring with considerable confusion at the wall the Adepts had scaled just a few minutes earlier.  They remembered that much, but nothing from the moment they crossed over.

                "Why would we have left them?" asked Balm.

                "Not intentionally," Scorch said, certain.

                "You don't think… they could be dead…" mumbled Gasp.

                "No," said Bane, old memories stirring darkness in his mind.  "No, you'd never forget your Adept dying.  There's no blackout.  It's all very clear."  The other Djinn were silent.

                "Well, that's good," said Echo, rather brightly.  Silences made him nervous.  The other Djinn stared at him, except for Bane, meaning that a mere seventy elementals had just turned their gaze on him.

                "What _did happen, then?" asked Luff._

                "If any of us remembered, we'd have said so by now," Gel pointed out.

                "And that's going to stop me from asking?" growled Luff.

                "Doubt it.  Not much has stopped you from complaining in the last few millennia," muttered Torch.  "Just barely avoid Apocalypse-by-army-of-the-undead-and-generally-unpleasant-people?  Kept whining.  Lighthouses go out, throwing a shadow of dying Psynergy over the land?  More whining.  Finally find heroes to save the world, and by the way, they _do?  Complaints from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn."_

                "Torch, shut up," said Fury.  "You're not helping."

                "Everyone chill a bit," said Tinder, getting scattered giggles from the younger Djinn.  "I mean it.  This is serious, and if we want to get our Adepts back, we can't be fighting like this."

                "Too much time spent around speech-making humans," muttered Salt.

                "And not enough spent by you," Tinder snapped back.

                "Why are you the leader?" demanded Wheeze.

                "Since when is she the leader?" demanded Bane.

                "No Mars Djinn's going to lead us while I'm conscious!" growled Serac.  Balm sighed and focused inwards, trying to ignore the sounds of the other Djinn and gather Psynergy.  There was no water nearby, it would take a lot of power to do something like this, but there wasn't any other quick solution…

                When the massive wave had spread out into the world's thinnest pond, every Mercury Djinn found themselves under severe scrutiny, all suspects in the mass soaking.

                "Go ahead, Tinder," said Balm.

                "I haven't been knocked out yet," Serac grumbled, but she didn't go on.

                "Look, if they aren't dead and we can't feel a thing over that wall, maybe it's because there's something strange that keeps us and our powers out of there?  Maybe even all Psynergy, which would mean that our Adepts are in serious trouble, so let's do what we were born for and help them.  Arguing amongst ourselves just gives more time for bad things to happen in," said Tinder.  "How would you like to find out what your Adept dying feels like, Serac?"

                "I already know!" Serac shouted, and Tinder drew back.  "It haunts my very existence!"  She closed her eyes and took a few deep, steadying breaths.  "I won't let it happen again, either.  You're right, Mars or not.  Let's get in there and find our Adepts."

                While the Djinn were discovering precisely how hard it was to get into Lunpa, the darkness in Isaac's head was slowly fading to make room for the pain, which stated very clearly at the beginning that it intended to be a big part of his life for the next couple of days.  There was already quite a lot of it, and it was multiplying like a times-table seen through a kaleidoscope.

                "How is he?" asked a voice.  A friendly voice.  One he had known for years… Jenna.  That's it.

                "I don't know for sure.  But I don't think the arrowhead cut too badly.  It was just some kind of toxin that dropped him.  Smells like a Sleep Bomb, doesn't it?  Probably refined and boiled with sap, like the Kolima used to make to fend off wolves."  That was another voice, and even if it wasn't his favourite sound in the world, Isaac would have known it, because he didn't know any other healers that good.

                Slowly, doing his best to ignore the way air molecules caused him to ache but finding it strangely difficult, Isaac rose to a sitting position.  His eyes adjusted from the dark of unconsciousness to the dark of the room he was in, and decided that it was a cell.  The rough stone walls, thick iron bars and heavily locked door all suggested this from past experience.  Adding to the general surreality of the day -because the day Isaac considered losing to a bunch of armoured thieves anything less than paranormal was the day he decided what he really wanted was to be a Jupiter Adept- was a sign.  It hung on the wall opposite the cell, which was mostly dank stone, and had this to say:

                **Your chances of escape are about as high as your Psynergy levels, you pathetic losers.   Yeah, I'm talking about you, Isaac of Vale.**

                The one benefit to having just returned to the realm of the nearly-upright was that his thinking hadn't had a chance to become especially cluttered yet.  So, rather than trying anything strenuous and possibly embarrassing, Isaac focused a bit of power and tried to cast Cure Well on himself.  He didn't get even a little spark of light, the type of thing that might suggest he was simply very low.  Isaac had _no_ Psynergy left.

                He crawled over to Mia and Jenna.  "How is everyone?" he asked softly.

                They turned sharply, not expecting him.  "You're nearly the last to wake up," said Mia, and Isaac was a little surprised that she didn't seem happier to see him.  A quick kiss on the cheek, even just a hand on his shoulder would have meant something.  He reached out himself, but Mia moved on to check Garet.

                "Weird," Jenna commented.  In the distance, a droplet of water fell and echoed in a properly cavernous manner.

                "What?" asked Isaac, too quick to be natural.

                "You've never been a good liar, Isaac.  What's up with Mia?"

                "I can't imagine," he answered, truthfully and helplessly.  He looked down at the Adept Mia had been diagnosing.  Even in the darkness, a big guy with blue hair was easily recognisable.  "Any more than I can imagine how they got Picard.  What happened to him?"

                "Mia said this thing is a crossbow-dart, a kind of weapon that was supposed to be very common on Angara a couple of centuries ago, when the world was… what did she say… in decline.  The Mercury Clan knew a lot more about the sealing of Alchemy than she thought, she just didn't know they did.  Apparently things were pretty wild while stuff started to crumble," said Jenna.

                "That was way more than you needed to tell me," Isaac remarked.  Jenna went slightly red.  They both knew that she started talking a lot when she was scared.  Not the kind of concern you get in battle, but the real bone-deep fear of the helpless child in the night.

                "Ivan and Sheba woke up fast.  Maybe being younger meant they recovered better than the rest of us," Jenna suggested.  "Anyway, they can't use Mind Read and it's freaking them both out.  They're over in the corner, talking."

                "_Just talking?" asked Isaac._

                "Yes."

                "We're in a cell, badly hurt, without Psynergy, they're in a dark corner, and they're still just talking," Isaac listed, making sure he understood.

                "Maybe they really don't have secret crushes."

                "Oddly enough, I'm starting to think you're right.  Almost disappointing, really."

                "Now _you're babbling, Isaac."_

                "Oh, quiet."

                "I _am being quiet.  …Why am I being quiet?"_

                "Whispering just felt natural, I guess," Isaac whispered back.  "What about Felix?"

                "You didn't notice?"  Isaac looked around and saw a deeper shadow against the wall near the door, one roughly the size of Felix, if he was sitting in his I-am-not-really-in-this-world-so-don't-bother-me position.  "I think he's blaming himself for getting taken out so fast."

                "I thought he was over that sort of thing."

                "About as much as he's over the last battle with Agatio and Karst," Jenna replied, a bit sarcastically.  Isaac nodded gravely.  He had no way of knowing what they were, but the defeat of the Flame Dragons, who were simply trying to save Prox and even the rest of Weyard, preyed heavily on his mind to this day.  Isaac suspected it always would, and he really couldn't blame him for it.  It was healthy for a hero to have at least one victory he almost didn't want in the back of his mind.

                "Any good leads?" asked Isaac, even more quietly.

                "Nothing.  Strong bars, no Psynergy, no keys on rings on the other side of the wall, not a single sleepy guard in sight, and entirely devoid of hidden passageways," Jenna reported.

                "How do you know that?" asked Isaac, looking puzzled.

                "I tapped stones for about half an hour.  Nothing slid back, revealing a mysterious tunnel that let in ominous red light or strange sounds or anything."

                "This is the most boring cell I've ever seen," said Isaac.  He looked at Mia.  If they couldn't go anywhere, he might as well find out what was going on.

                "How can there be _nothing?" asked Bane, annoyed._

                "We've been searching as thoroughly as sixty-eight Djinn can search, Bane," said Wheeze.  "There are no secret doors, no cracks in the wall, and no caves that might happen to lead deep into the heart of the fortress."

                "The old ways are dying out, I tell you.  Might as well have a dungeon cell with no secret passages," said Fury, shaking her head.

                "Or a supreme weapon without a tiny glaring flaw that's fortunately possible for the hero to notice and exploit while it's just being prepared to use," Sleet suggested.

                "Or an archvillain not having a secret vulnerability like being terrified of mirrors-"

                "Wait," said Sap, cutting the others off.  "What about that tunnel the Adepts used the first time to sneak into Lunpa?"

                "Sealed," Fever reported, one eyelid twitching as his sanity fluctuated a bit.

                "That's going to stop us Djinn?" demanded Forge.

                "Not bloody likely!" screamed Fizz, charging off into the trees.

                "Zephyr, go get her," said Luff, frowning.  "Where _is_ the tunnel, anyway?"

                "This way," said Fever, ricocheting off a tree as he started toward the cave.  The other Djinn followed, wondering if they were going to be attacked by monsters at any moment, as happened to the Adepts so often, but, strange as it sounds, creatures tend to stay away from what appears to be a calm stampede of more than seventy powerful elemental beings.

                The tunnel was right where they had left it, many months ago, but the iron gate inside was not.  Instead, there was a huge pileup of massive rocks that silently screamed 'I am in your way and there's nothing you can do about it'.  Then they laughed rudely.

                "Oh, I'll show them!" Iron promised, rushing at the collapsed wall.

                "You'll what?" asked Smog.  Because, while Venus Djinn might get such ideas about rocks, they were pretty well alone in that category.  Fortunately, the phrase 'unleash the fury of the Djinn' became a phrase for a very good reason, and after a minute or so of furious Psynergy-shouting, the rocks had been shredded, which is quite the feat when facing granite.  Of course, Granite facing granite is no contest, so the others weren't too surprised.  What happened next was a different matter.

                The tunnel was absolutely dark to those with normal sight, but to Djinn who could sense stone, or wind, or heat, or the water that permeated everything, it wasn't exactly a difficult path to follow.  Unfortunately, just at the blackest point, when no light was reaching them from either end, something very strange happened.  Everything went black.  Again.  Well, yes, everything already _was black, but it didn't bother them until their element senses went dark too._

                "Hold up.  I can't see a thing," said Echo.  "Where are you?"

                "You're not the only one," Kite called out.  "No one move, I don't want this getting crazy."

                "Can you see anything, Bane?" Luff whispered, not much liking speaking to the Djinni, but having no choice, since Bane was his only senior.

                "Just barely," Bane replied.  This was a blatant lie, but the others were unnerved enough to latch onto it like a drowning Golem thrown a life preserver.  "It's pretty fuzzy," he added for good measure.

                "Oh, give up on it," Crystal snapped, disapprovingly.  "Our Psynergy has been blocked."

**[Author's Notes]**  My thanks to all have reviewed (I feel so wanted) and extra thanks to people who are _just about to review.  You're going to, right?  …Right?_


	3. Mudshipping

**[Author's Notes]**  Aside from further thanks to the reviewers (this is probably my most successful fic ever, review-wise) and thanks to those who are going to review as soon as they read this, I'd like to ask for opinions: those of you who've read Shining in the Darkness, is there any interest in a sequel?  (Those of you who haven't: go read it, then answer the first question!)  As for the questions… all shall be revealed in due time.  On to the chapter!

**Chapter Three: Mudshipping**

                "What?!" shrieked Core, one of the younger Djinn.  He wasn't the shrieking type, really, but he did tend to lose control of his voice when he got freaked, which the other Djinn made fun of him for in the generally approved fashion.

                "She said something's blocking our Psynergy!" Corona spluttered back, amidst the snickering of most of the other Djinn.

                "Oh, shut up," Core growled in his usual, significantly deeper voice.

                "But… _we're Psynergy creatures, aren't we?  Shouldn't we be vanishing or something?" asked Cannon, looking around to see if any of the Djinn disappeared as she spoke.  None of them did, and just to be sure, Cannon jabbed Steam with her foot._

                "_Douse!" Steam yelled, with the usual calm and collected attitude of a Mercury Djinni annoyed by one of Mars, which was to snap like a twig under Boreas' foot.  Nothing happened._

                "What do you think?" asked Balm, quietly.

                "I'm betting that when the Adepts tried to go into this field, if it's inside Lunpa too, and that would make some sense out of what's going on, what with the strange separation and everything-"

                "You're getting to the point, right?"

                "I _think," Gale continued, annoyed, "that we were pushed out, because inside the Adepts, we _are_ just Psynergy.  We were too powerful to be destroyed, so we were just left out, and now that we've taken physical form we can get through, but we lose our Psynergy, too."_

                "Are we screwed?" whispered Fugue, loudly, apparently thinking that Gale and Balm weren't exactly being stealthy.

                "Not as long as I'm alive!" Bane growled.

                "So we've got until what, six o' clock?" asked Luff.

                Tinder shook her head and looked around the pre-apocalyptic group, hoping to find another Djinni to back her up.  One with slightly more sense than a wolverine on a sugar rush.  Seeing none readily available, she went to the old Mars fallback of being extremely assertive, which, as far as she knew, meant getting people to choose between doing what you say and being deafened by shouting.

                "_EVERYONE CALM DOWN OR I'LL PERSONALLY GIVE YOU ALL A SOLID THRASHING!"_

                Once the echoes died away, the tunnel was absolutely quiet and still.  Eventually, Mud spoke up.  "This is the second time Tinder's had to intervene, and we haven't even got inside the city.  There's got to be something we can do so that the Lunpans don't just hear an argument coming their way."

                "What's your brilliant plan, then?" asked Blitz, sarcastically.

                "Well… we could split up a bit.  Like… four groups of eighteen, maybe," said Mud, looking around for some support.

                "No," said Squall.

                "Well I don't hear any brilliant-" Mud began.

                "I _mean," Squall went on, "that eighteen's too much.  Six groups of twelve, three Djinn of an element in each one, and someone senior to be an advised leader for each group.  I'm thinking Bane, Torch, Luff, Dew, Gale, and Spring."_

                "I never thought of you as a strategist, Squall," Mold commented.

                "That's the sort of thing you should never tell me," Squall told the Venus Djinni, sweet as a scythe.  "And don't look at me like that, Tinder.  You're completely unsuited to leading a battle charge."  Tinder, without doing much of anything, appeared to grow twice her size and develop the kind of shadowing that ought to herald the approach of Death.

                "Smooth," muttered Mold.

                Squall was unfazed.  "See?  You'd terrify your own side.  We need you at the front to get them to give up without a fight."

                The Djinn set out, slowly making their way through the darkness, and this time the walls echoed with the sound of the polite verbal warfare that was the four elder Djinn (plus their two 'assistant elders', as they kept calling them) discussing their groups.

                "I intend to keep Crystal where I can see her, thank you," grumbled Bane.

                "Your sister-" Dew began.

                "She's not my sister any more than Breath is your great niece," Bane interjected.

                "I take offence, dear brother," said Crystal.

                "It would really help me out here if you'd stop calling me that," growled the oldest Venus Djinni.

                "I got used to it," said Crystal, simply.  "Three and a half millennia can do that."

                "Your sister-" Dew tried again.

                "I know there was a bit of a gap between Venus creating you and Quartz," said Bane, "but that's no reason to keep calling me brother when there are so many of us and the age differences are hundreds or thousands of years."

                "A bit of a gap?!" repeated Crystal, disbelieving.  "It was thirty-five hundred years!  That's a bit more than a coffee break!"

                "_Your sister-" said Dew, losing her temper, but before she could get any angrier, some new information became apparent and the sentence changed rather a lot.  "__Your sister's about to be eaten by a Ghoul!"  The smell, sound, and (in the absolute faintest light) silhouette of a Ghoul had just registered in her mind, putting together a mental picture that was going to be very unpleasant and possibly informative, depending on how interested anyone in the area was on the inside of a Djinni._

                Mud didn't even think.  There was a deathly drawing of breath as the ghoul prepared to lash out, and then the whole world -as far as the elder Djinn could feel- became thick and heavy.  There was a moment of quiet, except for the thrashings of the trapped Ghoul, as everyone figured out what had happened.

                "Jupiter protect me!" screamed Luff and Gale, realising that they had been flooded with mud.

                "What happened?" called Fog from the front of the horde, where he was helping lead the way.

                "Mud just blasted a Ghoul… with… mud," Core reported, trailing off as he realised what had happened.  "But we don't have Psynergy, and in any case I've never heard of a mud attack."

                "Except when Mud gets unleashed," Char finished.  Everyone considered this.

                "Hold up!" called Bane, and nodded at Haze, who had some kind of hero-worship thing for the ancient Djinni, and leapt atop the Jupiter's head to get a better speaking position.  "Everyone feel this?  Feel the atmosphere, the texture of reality?  Remember it!  This is what it feels like when the universe follows along with dramatic tradition.  Things can happen that shouldn't work.  And things can go right for the good guys just when everything looks worst.  If you want to be successful in helping heroes, these are the times you have to keep an eye out for, because that's when everything turns on a single moment, and you've got to make sure it turns the right way."

                "Stirring oration, sir!" Haze wheezed, straining with the effort of essentially holding up a Djinni with his ears.

                "I wish he didn't do things like that," groaned Flint, locked in the eternal embarrassed state of the young forced to be in the same proximity as the old, and it doesn't get better when they start making speeches to sixty or so of your closest friends.

                "Quiet," said Torch, nudging Flint with her foot.  "Bane knows what he's talking about.  We've all seen it happen plenty of times in our lives.  Even you've seen it a few times.  Remember Venus Lighthouse, when Isaac cast Revive for the first time in four hundred years, when it had only ever been possible after a lifetime of study and training even then?  Remember Mars Lighthouse, when Felix turned the-"

                "Yes, yes, we remember!" said Mist.  "But back here in the present, we just saw Mud do something that shouldn't be able to happen, and I think at a time like this it's worth thinking about that sort of event."  The Djinn looked among each other and generally agreed with this statement.

                Well, most of them.  Cannon was more of an action-oriented Djinni, and she had spent the last few moments concentrating.  If it worked, well, it probably worked a lot like Psynergy, didn't it?  Djinn were _good at Psynergy.  But it might have been useful to have some experience unleashing Djinn, too, and possibly for the first time ever -not counting the many times when she had wished for hands- Cannon was envious of the Adepts._

                Fortunately, it seemed that she got things more or less right, because before anyone could say much more than 'yep' and possibly make a 'Yepp' joke, Cannon smashed into the tunnel's stone wall, glowing red and surrounded by a bright glow.  There was an explosion of flames that weren't quite _normal_, and Cannon was left standing in a blackened alcove that hadn't been there moments before.  The stone clicked as it cooled, and a few Djinn shook warm stone fragments off themselves.

                "It works," Cannon reported, grinning widely at the prospect of bad things happening to bad people in the near future.

                "We noticed," said Mud, weakly.  His attention was then drawn away by a strange rushing sound, which turned out to be Gale doing her best to get rid of the mud he had used to quick-bury the Ghoul.  Speaking of the Ghoul, it had just managed to claw its way to the top in an inspiring metaphor for the inevitable victory of the work ethic when Serac froze it solid and shattered it into tiny bits.

                "Good," said Tinder.  "We're not quite as weak as we could be, then."

                "Could be?  We're way past Psynergy!" said Blitz, excited.  "We took that Sentinel apart with just our Djinni powers, and now we can use them at will?"

                "Y'mean Felix?" asked Sleet, quietly, and laughed at a comforting memory involving catapults.

                "We don't know what the costs are, though," said Dew.  "And personally I hope that I'm not going to be useful any time soon, but I just might be.  This is going to be dangerous.  There are going to be injuries."

                "Who cares what happens to the bad guys?" asked Forge, innocently.

                "You Mars Djinn-" Dew began, but today was apparently a day for cutting her off.

                "No," said Fog, and when he looked around, the others were agreeing with him.  "All of us.  Our Adepts are in danger."  He grinned, not often getting a chance to say things like this.  Maybe Bane had a point with the dramatic-reality thing…  "It's time to unleash the fury of the Djinn."

                "Sweet.  Where?" asked Fury.

                The cell looked exactly the same now, despite the passage of time.  Felix still sat hunched in the corner, sinking deeper into whatever depths his mind had conjured up this time, glowering at the bars and perhaps faintly hoping that they could be destroyed by sheer hatred, in this place where Psynergy didn't work.

                Ivan and Sheba were still talking in the back, and it was anyone's guess what they spoke of.

                The only thing that marked the passage of time, though Jenna still figured it had been at least a year since they were thrown in there (Mars Adepts are not known for patience) was the slow, strange, and not exactly happy dance that she was watching as Isaac tried to figure out what was wrong with Mia.

                Mia divided her time between checking up on Garet, who still hadn't woken up, and Picard, who still had a projectile that wasn't supposed to be in him in him.  Mia had commented once, quickly and efficiently, that it was caught on something, and she was likely to cause more damage trying to get it out than it would do sticking out of his chest.

                Isaac was, to put it bluntly, hovering.  He managed to be looking over her shoulder far more times than any human should be capable of, just when she happened to glance backwards.  This didn't improve things.

                He was also trying to engage in conversation, in a manner Jenna quickly declared the best capable of ensuring its own destruction.  Something was seriously disturbing Isaac, obviously.  There was no other earthly way he would have spontaneously jumped in with 'So, how long have you been part of the Mercury Clan?'

                Thankfully, Mia didn't seem to be interested in even acknowledging his existence, though if Jenna hadn't known better, she would have sworn that the Mercury Adept flinched at that remark.  Not out of annoyance or disappointment, but perhaps out of sympathy.

                _Ah ha, thought Jenna.  __You've gone into one of those Imilian modes with the stubborn silence, but it's getting to you.  I've got your game ticket!  You want to say something, but you think it'd be wrong.  Jenna was aware that this wasn't the usual voice she thought with, and wondered if it had something to do with not needing to think about what the other nine voices expected from a Mars Adept…_

                The meaning of the obvious silence slammed into Jenna like an iron sledgehammer against a mountainside.

                The Djinn were gone.

                "Shine?" called Jenna, tentatively.

                "She's caught on," Ivan whispered urgently.

                "Grab her, but don't attract attention," Sheba replied.

                "Fugue?  Are you- hey!" Jenna protested as she was latched onto by what seemed to be a large blond ant, in that it moved surprisingly fast and dragged her from the middle of the floor to the back, which endeavoured to be even shadowier than the rest of the dark cell.  "Look, I wasn't interfering with Isaac and Mia-"

                "That's not the problem," Sheba replied, evenly.  "Ivan and I don't know what's happened any more than you, but we _have_ been talking about it, and we're sure we don't want to tell anyone outside this room anything they don't already know."

                "Do they know what I'm going to do to them when I get out?  Because I'd really like to tell them," said Jenna, nastily, but she consented to whispering, as Sheba was doing.

                "How's Garet?" Isaac asked eventually, winning a prize for finally finding a realistic topic.

                "Pretty badly hurt," Mia replied, and the only emotion in her voice was concern for a wounded friend.  "He got caught up in the tide, like Felix, but Felix was at the edge of the Mist Potion's cloud and wasn't too hard to take down –it wasn't your fault, Felix, don't look like that.  Anyway, they had to hit Garet a lot harder to take him down."

                She was right.  Isaac had only seen Garet so badly hurt a few times before, and all of them had required Quartz or another Djinni just to make sure he lived.  As it was, in this cell, with their Psynergy mysteriously kept beyond their reach, Isaac was faced with the thought that this time the Mars Adept might not be that lucky.

                It was a sign of how scared Isaac was, and with good cause, that he didn't think about the Djinn again.  "What about Picard?"

                "Well, I'm pretty sure he should have woken up by now, but it's probably just to do with his Lemurian blood.  There's no sign of any other damage, and he's sleeping easily enough," Mia answered.  Then she looked back at Garet, and sighed in frustration.  "Psynergy's not coming back any time soon," the healer decided.  "I'll have to do what I can without Ply."

                "I'll help any way I-" Isaac started.

                "No, thank you, I think I can do this on my own!" snapped Mia.  Her voice echoed a bit off the rough stones of the wall, breaking the delicate and dark silence.

                "I just wanted to-" he tried again.

                "You don't think I can handle anything myself, do you?  I'm quite capable on my own, Isaac, I thought you understood that!" she raged on.

                "Mia, what are you-" he asked, but Isaac was having Dew's luck today.

                "You actually dropped your sword.  The Sol Blade, most powerful of all the weapons on Weyard, and you dropped it and gave up the fight because you thought I needed protecting.  So, is this new, or have you always just pretended to have confidence in me?  I guess this explains Mars Lighthouse in a whole new _what do you think you're doing?!"  This last comment was directed at Isaac as he lunged forward and hugged Mia tightly._

                "I think he's attracted to angry women, myself," Jenna commented from the corner.

                "I was afraid it was something serious," Isaac mumbled, taking heart in the fact that Mia hadn't forced him away or even broken his arm.  Deciding not to push his luck, Isaac let go and looked into her eyes (thought doing that and focusing on what he was saying wasn't easy).

                "It _is something serious," Mia growled, but a bit of uncertainty was in her voice._

                "No, it isn't," said Isaac.  "Reason being, you think I surrendered because it was you.  Mia, we were losing that fight.  It wouldn't have mattered if I kept hacking or not.  But if I did, and they did kill you, then I'd have lost twice, and that wasn't worth it."

                "How wasn't it me, then?" Mia demanded.

                "It could have been anyone.  Garet, Jenna, Sheba, Picard, even Commander Give-My-Life-For-My-Cause by the door over there," said Isaac, nodding at Felix, who just might have smiled for a second.  "I knew we couldn't win then, and it wouldn't have been worth risking anyone to see how long I could last out there.  You just happened to be the one in the way."

                Mia was silent as she took this in.  Jenna, Ivan, Sheba, and Felix (who wouldn't have admitted it unless Jenna waved a _very_ pointy stick at him later) watched with rising anticipation, wondering what she'd say, if it really was the end of those two as that couple…

                …But it didn't exactly surprise them when Mia grabbed Isaac by the back of the neck and pulled him back over for a kiss.  "They do well together," Ivan commented to Sheba, quietly.

                "It did seem to me that you dropped the sword a bit faster than you might have done for the kind of heroic drama you seem to enjoy," Mia remarked, winding a bit of his orange-gold hair around her finger.

                "Maybe a bit," Isaac agreed, grinning.

                "As is appropriate for a situation involving the safety of the love of your life," Mia went on.

                "Quite appropriate."

                "I mean, yes, it'd have been the same for everyone, but there was a little more urgency to it."

                "A little."

                They were stopped from giving Ivan anything else to bug Isaac with later on by Jenna's sudden worried gasp.  "Garet's stopped breathing," she hissed.  Mia spun to the prone Adept and quickly checked his vital signs.

                "Still planning to help?" asked Mia.

                "I was going to whether you told me what was wrong or not," Isaac replied.

                "Then get over here and we'll see how good we really are, Venus Adept."


	4. Aroma Therapy

**Chapter Four: Aroma Therapy**

                "I've had enough of arguing," said Bane, annoyed.

                "Funny, you don't look dead yet," Luff countered.

                The Djinn emerged from the tunnel in the northwest corner of Lunpa, and after spending a moment blinking in the sunlight, moved as one elemental into the shrubbery of the nearest house, from which they did a quick reconnaissance of the village.

                "Lot of guards," a hedge commented.

                "Never mind the guards, check out that castle," said the marigolds.

                "Is foxglove poisonous?" asked a patch of the bell-shaped flowers.

                "The villagers look scared," observed a fern.

                "I guess they're not in on whatever's happening in the fortress, then," said the hedge, with a difference voice.

                "I wouldn't normally ask, but I'm starting to understand why the Adepts don't enjoy hunger," the foxglove cluster went on.

                "What are we doing now that we're all nicely organised into groups?" asked a sarcastic holly bush.

                "The holly has a point," admitted yet another part of the hedge.

                "Well, we've got to find the Adepts," said some thistles.  "And get far, far away from these plants."

                "Stop whining, Wheeze.  You're going to end up like Luff someday."

                "Ow!  Why on Weyard do these things need to be so -ow- pointy?!"

                "I really hope none of these are those carnivorous plants."

                None of the Djinn said anything for a while.

                "Another group has to find out what's happened to our Psynergy, because I need to burn whoever suggested that," the fern went on.

                "And we need to find out who's behind all this," said Gasp.

                "Find the treasury.  Every good castle has a treasury."

                "I bet we could rally these villagers, with a bit of effort.  They'd probably be happy to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.  Everyone loves doing that.  Especially the hangings afterwards," said Lull.

                "You continue to freak me out," Vine stated.

                "And you really expect to get away with all of this?" asked Eddy, eternal skeptic.

                "Ed's got a point."

                "Eddy!"

                "Whatever," said Shine, ignoring him.  "We'll need a dose of chaos, too."

                "Wahoo!"

                "And already we have a volunteer.  Thank you, Fever.  Sit down and don't set anything on fire.  Distractions have to be properly timed, and this'll be a big one," Shine went on.

                "Wait, that puts me in the chaos-sowing group," Tinder pointed out.

                "Well, if anyone gets hurt, and that's a dangerous group, they'll need you," said Shade.

                "I wasn't complaining," Tinder replied after a moment.  "It's about time I got to wreak a little havoc."

                "Does anyone know why the defensive Djinn are the most warlike ones?" asked Blitz as the Djinn carefully moved out and divided into their groups, while the elder Djinn chose tasks.  "I feel like I'm not living up to the standard."

                "What could cause him to stop breathing?" asked Isaac, who might have been capable of healing Psynergy but was no master of the art.

                "Lots of things, none good," said Mia, who started to lean over Garet and then stopped.  She glanced back at Isaac for only a second, blushing in the dim light, and then looked at Jenna.  "Remember what I taught you about breathing problems, Jenna?"

                "I hope so.  Never tried, though," said the Mars Adept, coming over to them.

                "It's not that hard.  One induced respiration, please, and no tongue."

                "You call that bedside manner?" asked Ivan.

                "Do you see a bed?  This is dungeon-floor-side manner.  That means I patch him up and then we find out whether or not he felt safe and serene."

                Jenna began the chest-pumping and breathing techniques she had learned during the few last weeks of their Lighthouse quest, when she had apparently hallucinated that she had all the natural qualities of a good healer and was ready to be taught the ways of the most sacred art.

                It hadn't taken long to decide that Psynergy was about as far as she wanted to go with healing and would stick to creating work for healers the rest of the time.  But there were a few things she had picked up, and even if she broke occasionally to try to make his lungs start again and was trying to force air into him and he was unconscious… well, a kiss was a kiss.  And if she didn't get this right, it would be the last, so there was an incentive to remember everything in perfect detail.

                Meanwhile, Mia opened Garet's shirt and pressed her ear to his side, listening to the rhythm of life inside.  She didn't have Psynergy, she shouldn't be able to do much with this… but some things, even if they start from another place, can go deeper than the conscious mind.  Mia could hear the slow -and growing ever slower- beat of Garet's heart, feel the blood as it flowed through his veins to the lungs…

                _See the wickedly twisted shape of the metal, a tiny fragment that had cut its way through from behind until it reached the lung, where it caused a system shock and shut him down._

                Mia floated back up from the near-trance she had put herself into, in time to hear the last few words of a comment from Isaac.  "What?" she asked, distractedly.

                "I said I should try not breathing once in a while.  Is it common practice to disrobe patients?"

                "Actually, I have very little," she replied, still distracted.  Isaac was still puzzling this one over when Jenna had some luck.

                "Come on, come on Garet…" she murmured, and was rewarded by a sort of weak, wheezing sound.  "He's breathing!" she announced with relief.

                "Good," said Mia, and she had slipped into her unstoppable healer voice, the kind of thing usually associated with demigods.  "Isaac, help me turn him over.  Let's get that thing out."

                "What thing?" asked Isaac, but he had the sense to ask once he had already started flipping his friend onto his front.  Once this was done, though, the answer was clear enough.  Just underneath his left shoulderblade his brown tunic was ripped in four places, and the skin underneath each tear was marred by dry blood and recently sealed wounds.  "That's disgusting."

                "I don't really notice any more," said Mia, vaguely, and rolled back her sleeves.  "Now, one of these is the one causing trouble…"  She sighed.  "I wish we had _some_ kind of tool to work with."  Silently, Sheba's hand appeared beside her, holding a herb pouch and a stiletto.

                "How did you get those in here?" asked Mia, taking both items thankfully.

                "What kind of guard searches a little girl's boots for healing plants and a small deadly weapon?" asked Sheba rhetorically.

                "No way," said Jenna, backing off.  "I am not using that."

                "Look, I know this is makeshift, but you're going to have to get over the idea of sharp objects coming in contact with Garet if-" Isaac started.

                "No, I mean I've had it with daggers as surgical tools.  Remember Sol Lighthouse?"

                "I wasn't there for that part, but if Picard's having a nightmare right now, I bet that's it," said Ivan, gesturing at the prone Lemurian.

                Mia had ignored the conversation entirely, instead carefully reopening the correct injury and reaching in with the long knife, trying not to cut any more than had already happened.  After what felt like a day at least, Mia felt the tip contact something that was harder than muscle and too small to be a bone.  Also, any bones that have opened a lung are almost definitely in the wrong place anyway.

                Mia closed her eyes against the sweat beading on her brow- she didn't need to see to do this anyway -and slowly drew the intruder out, keeping it from snagging whenever possible, but twice forced to make extra incisions to keep it moving.

                At last an immensely satisfying _clink rang through the cell, which was silent except for the sound of Mia's deep, calming breaths.  Isaac gingerly picked up the little killer, examining it closely.  A vicious hook-shaped projectile, a flechette, probably fired from some kind of blowgun in the midst of the chaos._

                The job was only half done, of course, and Mia carefully chewed up a pinch of the herbs, doing her best to make a kind of salve.  She carefully coated the broad side of the blade with this and it sunk into Garet's back again, this time only the means for spreading the herbal paste.

                Mia moved quickly but carefully; now any mistakes would undo whatever she had just finished.  Satisfied that anything more would be riskier than it would be helpful, the blade withdrew again, and Mia packed a few more leaves against the surface of Garet's skin, applying pressure and waiting for the deep wound to heal.

                "Good work, Mia," said Jenna, breathing out as much anxiety as possible when she saw the Mercury Adept finish her work.

                "How could a blowgun drive anything that far into anyone?" asked Isaac, quietly, and wished he hadn't.

                Bane stood, in his smallest form -the Djinn could take on a few sizes, and the smallest was only two inches high- in a nook at the top of a broken wall and watched the wandering patrols, as well as trying to keep both eyes on all the people in the area simultaneously.  This is a very long way of saying that he was getting a severe headache.

                "See anything yet?" asked a voice beside him.  Bane turned to see Flash squeezed against the fractured stone of the nook, staring intently at the massive gates to Lunpa Fortress.

                "Flash?" asked Bane, who was still recovering from his less-than-clever attempt at mass covert observation.  "Who's that?"

                Flash looked to his left, which was apparently where Bane saw another Mars Djinni.  "There's just me here," he replied, carefully, and after a moment added "sir."

                "Well, I've got my eye on you two," said Bane, falling back to his autopilot, which disapproved of everything that existed and many things that didn't.

                "What are we waiting for?" asked Gust, frowning.  "Ivan needs our help!  And all the others, of course.  Them more so."  He had hopped up onto the top of the wall, in full view of anyone, and so was tackled down into a gap by Balm, who had more sense (though this was not hard).

                "We're waiting for a chance to get in without being spotted, which is hard enough when we're just hiding, with you tagging along," the Mercury Djinni replied, and grabbed his crest with her tail to keep him from going anywhere.

                "What are you talking about?  No guards are looking this way," Crystal pointed out.

                "And the other dozens of people?" asked Bane, sarcastically.

                "Look at them, Bane.  They're battered, cowed.  They're not on the thieves' side.  They wouldn't speak a word if they saw us, and with herded attitudes like those, I don't think we'd need to worry even if they were all Dodonpa's disciples."

                "Go!" called Flash, quietly, even before Crystal had stopped speaking, and she was left standing there for a second before following.

                They leapt off the wall, a tiny brigade of a dozen Djinn, and set off toward the imposing gates.  They were in a rush, of course, not knowing how long they had before a guard happened to look their way, but the Djinn weren't used to their own unusual powers, so when Zephyr decided a mass speed-boost would be helpful, eleven Djinn rocketed into the base of the wall.

                Aroma was shaking mortar dust off her head and trying to get both eyes to look in the same direction when Zephyr caught up at a safer and more controlled speed.  "Y'know, Bane looked like that a moment ago.  You've got to learn from –urk!"  The 'urk', of course, was the little-known cry of the Jupiter Djinn Suddenly Finding Her Breathing Restricted By A Mars Djinni.

                "Okay, we need a warning system," said Kindle.  He looked down at Zephyr.  "Is that your neck?  Sorry.  Didn't notice.  My nerves have been stunned by a sudden rush of information, by which I mean the devastating pain of smashing into a wall."

                "Stop it," said Balm.  "Enough of this.  No fighting of any kind.  None.  I mean it."

                "How exactly are you going to back that up?" asked Scorch, a little rebelliously.

                "Yeah," Gust seconded, still too dazed to think of anything better.  They found their gazes returned by the mountain-bending glare of Petra.  "On the other hand, teamwork is central to success."

                "Quite agreed.  How about a peer-bonding shoulder massage, buddy?"

                "We don't have shoulders."

                "What?  Blast."

                "All right, so we've made it to the wall," said Gel.  "How do we get to the other side?"

                "I think I ground to a halt two-thirds of the way through, let's start there," said Flash, checking to see if his tail was broken.

                "There's got to be a way in that doesn't require chewing through a foot of granite," Fog said.  "We need to think about it."

                "Start looking, then," Bane ordered them, always feeling at home with commands.  The other Djinn spread out, searching along the wall for a gap, secret tunnel, or lever with 'unlock main gate and prison cell doors' carved into the wall behind it.  All except Aroma, who sat quietly underneath a large leaf and thought about the village.

                It was still a normal village, even if it did have a tremendous stronghold of evil built onto the northern side.  There was a blacksmith's shop, and a small produce market, and even a dairy at one point.  And what were dark fortresses like on the inside?  There was always a kitchen, of course, but what did it have?  Big ovens and stoves, the sort of thing used for big feasts with an entire ox over a roaring fire.

                Never a bakery.  Bakeries were too happy for a castle of doom.  But guards were so refreshingly open about food, especially when on boring duty, and by the look of the sun behind the thin clouds it was past lunchtime by now…

                Bane whirled around when the smell struck him full-force, but managed not to drool.  It was an incredible smell, it had _personality.  It had hopes and dreams and fears and most of all, it smelled like the moment an oven containing the ultimate loaf of bread was opened._

                "Baker's here!" shouted a voice on the other side of the massive gates.  Locks were unlocked, bars were unbarred, and the door opened just enough for the man on the other side of the gate to look into his superior officer's face and know that he was in trouble.

                "Baker?" questioned the captain.  "First, no, second, shut up and get back to your post."

                The door shut.  It didn't matter.  The Djinn were through before the captain reached 'first'.

**[Author's Notes]**  Not much to say, except thanks for reviews, go review more, and any fans of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance might want to keep their eyes open for something of a saga starting soon…


	5. All Hail Breaks Loose

**[Author's Notes]**  I know it's been a while.  My apologies.  But only a little.  Anyway, please do keep reading, enjoy, and review this, but also check out **Knights of Alchemy for a very different story.  I'd offer a prize for the first person to guess how we know the characters, or even when it's set, except that I really can't.  Anyway, reviews to anything are always welcome.  Really very extremely welcome.**

**Chapter Twelve: All Hail Breaks Loose**

                Torch looked at the small melted gap in the iron base of the wall with a certain satisfaction.  She liked helping the Adepts, wouldn't hear a word against Garet -though she did occasionally make exceptions if it was too long for him to understand- and wouldn't trade it for anything… But it was good to have some destructive power to herself again.

                The Djinni squad had crept along the outer wall of Lunpa, on the inside, until they reached a point where it met with a wall of the fortress.  This wall had been crafted out of iron, at least for the first foot or so, so Torch had promptly crafted a door in it.  It was fortunate that there were no guards on the other side, because then Torch would have also crafted the hell out of them without much hesitation.

                "We're doing what?" asked Echo from the back of the group.

                "Finding out what's blocking out all our Psynergy and then making it stop," Torch replied absentmindedly, watching for the approach of any Lunpans as the Djinn filed through the wall.

                "And we're going to do this how?" asked Echo, who was one of the more difficult Djinn to get along with.  He had the opposite of respect for his elders, or perhaps the inverse.

                "Echo, m'boy, there is nothing on this planet that can't be melted, frozen, roasted, pulled apart, rusted, eroded, corroded, poisoned, or at least smashed to bits," answered Torch.  

                Breeze looked at the team Torch led.  "Core, Chill, Torch, Vine, Salt, Whorl, Sour, Wheeze, and Echo, I guess," he muttered.  "What are Coal and Eddy and I here for, then?"

                "Equality and unforeseen contingencies," Torch said.  "Now stop asking questions.  I'm trying to think."

                "It's not going to be easy, but I think it might be worth asking for help," Sour suggested.

                "Equality and unforeseen… you mean you got stuck with us because you couldn't think of an excuse to shove us into some other group?" Coal suggested.  He wasn't big on the idea of respect for his elders either, which was probably why he got along so well with Echo.

                "Well, they must have known the Adepts were coming, otherwise there'd by no reason to even _have some kind of Psynergy blocking device… object… thing."  This was not met with the round of congratulations Whorl had hoped for.  "_So_," he went on, "it'll probably be deep inside, where no one could hear about it beforehand-"_

                "Oh, good, we get to burn a trail of destruction," said Core, happily.

                "-_and," Whorl went on, because he didn't like being interrupted, "it'll be heavily guarded, hidden, and they'll be keeping the Adepts near it, to make sure they don't manage to get any Psynergy back.  It'll be close to the dungeons.  And I wouldn't be at all surprised if we got weaker as we got closer."_

                "All right already!  Stop taunting me!" Echo snapped.

                "I'm just pointing out the reality of the situ-"

                "This sounds like the most fun we've had in years and you're still talking!  Let's _go_!" the Venus Djinni went on, but he was stopped by Vine, who could be a serious roadblock when she wanted.

                "We're on the inside of the outer wall, not the fortress.  Let's get a bit of a distraction going before we charge in or anything," said Vine, one foot keeping the younger Djinni totally immobile.  "Wheeze, signal Gale's team."

                "Yes ma'am," Wheeze muttered, and rose up.

                "I see something," Haze reported, hovering over the top of a tree in the middle of the village.  "Looks like a Jupiter Djinni on the other side of the wall…  It's Wheeze."  The Djinn in the branches below couldn't see him, but they could hear the grin in his tone.  "Just threw a bunch of leaves in the air."

                "Is that five?" asked Sleet, hopefully.

                "Four.  All four groups who need us are in position," Sap announced.  "Dew has other plans, she doesn't need us."

                "We'll see how true that is when all's said and burned to the ground," said Gale, quickly adjusting to the arrogance of leadership.  "Let's let those Adept-stealing scum taste some Djinni power!"

                "Garet's going to wish he had been here for this," said Fever.  He grinned.  "It's going to be fun to tell him about it over and over again later."  Then he flared red.  No one quite understood the difference between Djinni energies and Psynergy.  For now, though, Fever didn't care.  All he cared about was the expression on the gatekeepers' expressions as he blasted into the arch over the door and huge blocks rained around him, as well as the delusion-inducing smoke that gave Fever his name.

                The explosion rippled through the fortress and into the dungeons, where the Adepts looked up at the ceiling in disbelief.  "What the heck was _that?" demanded Isaac as dust floated down onto them._

                It created tremors in the throne room -for there was indeed a throne room- and shook the important occupant, both physically and mentally.  Explosions that weren't scheduled were never good.

                Ground moved next, launching charges of power that created a gravity well at the broken gates.  It was so strong that the stones sunk a little deeper into the earth and a few gargoyles were ripped off the parapets high above, smashing down into an effective barricade, keeping all the reinforcements inside.  It was going to be a bad day for the ones outside.

                A cluster of soldiers drew their weapons and faced the blasted gate.  The most this did was ensure that they didn't see it coming when they were suddenly mugged by a wet snowdrift.  Sleet grinned as well as a Mercury Djinni can, and they're good at it.

                But then their advantage of surprise was lost.  Other soldiers out patrolling the village -there were plenty- saw Sleet's attack, and the strange creature that had caused it.  Half lobster, perhaps, and half some other kind of creature, maybe a shellfish sort of thing… no, not really, more like a-

                That's as far as they got before being sent sailing through the sky by a truly Gale-force wind, landing safely in some thatch.  Well, halfway through some thatch.

                "Hey, is that chili?" asked one, his torso hanging over the kitchen table of one house and his legs flailing on the roof.  He sniffed deeply.  "Mmm.  Just like mom's…  Um… little help?"

                "Private, stop conversing with civilians!"

                "But it's lunchtime…"

                In truth, the enthatched soldiers had it easier than most.  Those at the fortress gate actually managed to stay on guard, and when the Djinn revealed themselves, they were ready.  Seeing no better targets at the moment, Gale's little devastating group marched on the fortress.

                The first attack was made by a young soldier who hadn't yet learned how unpleasant battle could be.  He stabbed at a horned, spiky, somewhat frog-like beast as it approached him, and was glad to see the look of horror on its face as his spear connected.

                A gash appeared along the Venus Djinni's side, and all the others paused for a moment in shock.  Djinn couldn't truly be harmed, no matter what blade struck them.  Not a mark ever showed after the most terrible battles (most of which had been the ones when they met the Adepts), but there was one now.  A violet liquid, not especially thick or thin or opaque or transparent but definitely some kind of blood, began to leak from the wound.

                The Djinni flew through the air, smashing the soldier across the head with his tail, and from the impact a cloud of lights flew back from the falling Lunpan, mending the injury.  "You absolute _meathead!" growled Sap, rubbing the former injury with his tail.  He looked at the others.  "You have no idea how much that hurt."_

                "This is getting a little scary," Haze dared to suggest.

                "Hardly," said Gale.  "Look, the rest of the soldiers haven't even moved."

                "You're right," Ground agreed.  The standing Lunpans began to tremble more obviously as the dozen Djinn faced them.  "We might as well take an easy victory while it presents itself."

                "For Lunpa!" shouted one of them, and they were spurred to action.  The next few moments were complicated, but they ended simply enough.  Spritz healed the minor scratches they had gained, all the Lunpan soldiers lay on the grass, some were groaning faintly, and Tinder was standing on one's chest, slapping him back and forth with her foot.

                "Not so tough now that things are evened up, are you?" she taunted.

                "Tinder, that one's unconscious," Steam pointed out diplomatically.

                "Best make sure."

                "I don't know why you're so jumpy, Luff," said Gasp.  "It's probably just Dodonpa not learning from experience."  But the older Djinni ignored his calming words, and continued to move through the dark and dusty stone corridors as though he expected to meet a dragon any moment now.

                "Do you really think you're going to get anywhere with him?" asked Squall.

                "You know better than that, Squall.  You know all about villains standing behind villains," said Luff, darkly.

                "Well, yeah, but even when we don't expect the big bad guys, we always handle it," Squall replied, dismissively.  "And we're not going to run into demigods around here."

                "What on Weyard are you talking about?" asked Mold.

                "Old adventures.  You don't want to know, kid," Luff insisted.

                "Arr!" shouted Hail, and she ignored the sudden chorus of shushing with admirable skill.  "There's bound to be treasure ter plunder once the battle's over!  If we be needing ter get rid of the former owners first, then have at 'em, but sneaking about in shadows and dust are not fer the likes o' Hail!"

                "What the Hail is wrong with her?" asked Spark in a stage whisper, much to the amusement of the Mars Djinn.

                "Quiet, all of you!" Luff snarled.  "Look, we take care of whoever's behind all of this, their powers break, the army loses its spirit to fight- heck, we might even get our Psynergy back right away.  You all know how it goes.  So no more complaints.  Let's get this done."

                The light from the nearest window was blocked for a moment as a small avalanche of battlement rocketed past at high speeds, crackling with Ground's power.  Further shouting ensued outside.

                "I don't know what kind of bad guys we're facing," said Fizz, "but it's got to be safer than being out there, no matter which side you're on."

                "Look, I don't care who's behind all of this, they don't have a chance," Shine insisted.  "I don't intend to creep around and hope I don't get spotted by some punk in armor a thousandth my age."

                "It'd be stupid to just let them know we're here, Shine!" Rime protested.

                "It's a matter of pride.  Djinn do not slink."

                "Boy's got a point," Luff agreed.

                And so the Djinn went on to perform the only stealthy march in the history of the universe, tromping _very quietly up and down the dim, window-studded hallways until they found a pair of large wooden doors.  This, like most things, including photosynthesis and the passage of time, caused an argument._

                "No one puts bloody great doors like that in a hallway if there's nothing but hallway on the other side," said Luff, master of evil overlord psychology.

                "Yeah, but it could be anything.  It could be the _barracks, for all we know," Iron protested._

                "Your point?" asked Squall.  "Oh defensive one?"

                "Arr!  It does have an equal chance o' bein' the treasure room!  What're we waitin' fer?!" shouted Hail, but this was her normal volume, and no one really noticed.

                "I smell food," Rime announced.  "I think we've found the kitchen."

                "Food!  That settles it.  This whole hunger idea is way worse than I expected," Shine stated.  He began to glow softly, but Forge pointed out that it might be worth just pushing on the doors.  It took the strength of a few Djinn, but they did, and the massive portal ground open.

                It _was the kitchen.  And, as has been noted, it was lunchtime.  This meant that the barracks were empty, and the dozen Djinn found themselves facing about two hundred Lunpan soldiers.  No one, including the Djinn, moved for several seconds.  A spoonful of thick stew went _glop_ somewhere in the crowd._

                "Any chance of hauling those doors shut again _really_ quickly?" asked Luff out of the corner of his mouth (a feat he managed despite not obviously having a mouth).

                "Not likely," Gasp replied.

                "_Djinn!" yelled a soldier, somewhere in the crowd, and then the stillness was shattered like a nacho anvil.  A few of the Lunpans closest to the door took a moment to fling a salvo of daggers before going for heavier weapons._

                "Whoa!  Yike!  AGH!  Same to you, pal!" exclaimed Spark, dodging two knives and a whirring meat cleaver.  He found that in the next few moments of chaos, which involved a deafening stamping of plated boots and the majority of the Djinn taking off into the depths of the crowd, he ended up back to back with Rime.  "You realise what our only use is, right?"

                "Drawing away enemy fire?" said Rime, glumly avoiding being stomped by diving under furniture.

                Spark looked at him like he had just suggested they go torch Kolima Forest and roast marshmallows over Tret.  "Wow, you Mercury Djinn really aren't naturally aggressive, are you?  No, we break some heads in a creative way."

                "Creative?" Rime repeated.

                "Yeah.  Right now I'm looking at the mashed potatoes on that table."

                "How juvenile," Rime muttered.  A sword chopped the chair he was hiding under into bits.

                "They can't julienne you if their eyes are full of starch," Spark pointed out.

                "To the potatoes!" Rime shouted.  "To victory!"

                "Close the doors!  Don't let them escape!" a soldier called, having backed Shine and Squall into a corner.  They glanced at each other.

                "Sorry, we think we misheard you," said Shine.

                "Who's trying to escape here?" asked Squall.  The soldier never got a chance to answer before unconsciousness came for an extended visit, since Shine hurtled into him with a blast of Mars power and a flash that blinded everyone on that side of the large room.

                There was a slamming sound as the two heavy doors were thrown back in place, and since there was a battle growing on the other side, no one heard "Oh, thank you so very much" from the other side.

                Squall fluttered around just above head height, dodging frenzied attacks that tended to end up landing on another soldier's helmet, dropping the unlucky Lunpan and letting Squall move on freely.  It was only when axes started getting involved that she upped the proverbial ante.

                Bolts of purple lightning began to stab down from the ceiling, and as each one struck, another Lunpan was removed from the fight.  In truth, Squall wasn't sure how much it could be called a fight.  'Fight' sounded so equal, but none of the Djinn had taken so much as a glancing blow yet.  And despite what she said, it didn't seem likely to stay that was for long.

                A throwing axe whirled through the air in a graceful arc, and Squall didn't even see it coming until it was too late to dodge.

                _Knew it, she thought, and closed her eyes.  With a clink and crackle of energy, the axe rebounded and dropped down into the crowd, who parted eagerly to make way for its fall.  Squall looked around in disbelief._

                "Remember this next time you make a 'defensiveness' remark," said Iron, sitting safely on a shelf beside a large sack of flour.  "Hey, Geode, this way!"  Said Venus Djinni was darting between legs at that moment, trying to avoid being turned into the soup of the day, or perhaps a plate of hors d'oeuvres.

                Geode ran a full circle around a large soldier and then made for Iron's shelf.  He didn't see how he could climb the wall, but apparently there was a way, he just had to see it before they caught up and made use of various sharp implements- _whumpf_, the world went white, then black.

                "I really do disapprove of this," Rime told Spark, matter-of-factly, grinning widely as he blinded another soldier with a ladleful of mashed potatoes.  Spark ignored him, instead stunning the disabled fighter with a frying pan.  "And what's with the frying pan?  That's such a girly weapon."

                Squall touched down on the table beside him.  She looked at Rime, then at a soldier, who backed up a step before being struck by purple lightning.  "No," she corrected the Mercury Djinni, "_that's_ a girly weapon.  A frying pan is a _domestic weapon."_

                "Ah," said Rime, weakly, and tried to ignore the smell of crisped hair.

                Luff and Forge stood atop the pile of flour, kicking the heck out of any Lunpan who tried to rise out of it.  After a few satisfying moments, a dusty white shape rose beside them.

                "Goodness me, it's the Venus Djinni of Christmas Past," Luff commented.

                "Ha ha," said Geode, not amused.  "Where's Iron?"

                "Up where it's safe, I'm betting," Forge replied, as Shine blasted through another rank of soldiers on the other side of the room.  "You were supposed to keep running, not stand inside the blast radius."

                "I didn't know there was going to _be_ a blast radius!"

                "Duck!" Forge announced.

                "Ooh, I could definitely go for some roast duck," said Luff, and was promptly clobbered with a truncheon.  The Lunpan was winding up to swing at Geode when a strange light flashed in his pupils, and he smacked himself between the eyes.

                "I've got six that way so far, but it's really slow to get them one at a time," said Mold, hopping over the prone soldier and onto the flour heap.  "Is Luff okay?"

                "He's sturdier than that," Forge replied, looking at the Jupiter Djinni.  "Stunned, though."

                The numbers of the Lunpans -those conscious, at least- had dwindled rapidly, but there were still pockets of resistance, and neither Squall nor Shine, who had been wreaking the most havoc, dared get near the defended circles.  Every time they even got close, a sweep of an axe or jabbing spear convinced them to retreat.

                "This is impossible," Shine called to Squall.

                "What?" asked Squall, distracted.

                "There's no way to get close!" the Mars Djinni protested.

                "Hit 'em, Rime!" shouted Spark.

                "What?" asked Shine, startled.  "No, no, no charge for glory, no, bad plan!"  It was too late.  Spark and Rime rushed the cluster of armor and weapons that Shine was keeping at bay, waving kitchen implements threateningly.  It was about as effective as Shine expected, and Spark ended up getting smashed aside by a large mace, and rolled away unconscious.  Rime stopped his charge and instead ran to his friend's side.

                "Oh no, Spark!" Rime moaned.  He turned back to the Lunpans.  "There's going to be hell to pay for this one!"

                "Hey, have you seen Hail?" asked Squall, Rime's threat having triggered the name.

                There was a moment's silent contemplation.

                "Oh no," mumbled Iron, who had the highest vantage point and could see the scene about to unfold.

                "Arr!  Avast, ye gutless mortals, this is yer fate fer standing against Hail and striking down a Djinni!" the Mercury Djinni announced, and she shoved a large block of firewood for the ovens onto a plank.  It landed heavily, and from the other end of the inclined plank, a cauldron was launched into the air.

                It rained nearly-boiling stew onto the group before crashing down amongst them, trapping the one who had hit Spark inside a very small, roughly spherical cell.  Shine took the scattered remainder down in a few blazing tackles.

                "Spark!" yelled Forge, dashing over.  "Oh no… he's hurt pretty bad."

                The last group of Lunpan soldiers had backed up to the door, and were about to risk trying to get it open and fleeing before Squall could zap any more of them, when a sound they had been hearing for some time got louder.  It was a sort of insistent _thunk_, _thunk_ sound.  And when Forge mentioned that Spark was hurt, it got faster.

                _Thunk__, thunk, th-crunch- the sound of something giving away.  Then one more impact, and with a slow, loud creaking, the barred doors toppled inwards on top of the soldiers.  With its weight spread out over all of them, it wasn't enough to damage them, but they weren't going anywhere.  Fizz marched in on top of the door, carrying the meat cleaver Spark had dodged earlier in her tail._

                "They locked me out," she explained, frowning.  "I had to chop through the hinges."  Without another word, she walked over to Spark and unleashed healing energies.

                "Well, that was fun," said Shine.  "Where to now?"

                "Djinn!" shouted Squall.  She got several looks that suggested she'd lost it.  "That guy shouted 'Djinn' when we came in here.  Not 'intruder', not 'monster', Djinn.  They know what we are."

                "Oh, great," groaned Luff.  "I finally wake up and the first thing I hear is wonderful news."

                "No time to worry now," said Fizz.  "We've got to find out who's behind this."

                "Oh, good, clichés.  Now I'm sure we're safe," said Shine.  "No one say 'they'll never get away with this', okay?"


	6. Operation Torch

**Chapter Six: Operation Torch**

                A Lunpan guard stood in the middle of the village, outside the house of the former village council leader.  The man had a purpose while Dodonpa ruled, but it wasn't so now, and they didn't want him holding secret meetings or anything.  The villagers of Lunpa were a subdued group now, but it was clear that they didn't like the way things were now, and a resistance movement wasn't something that would be allowed to grow under the Lunpan Fortress' metaphorical nose.

                It was a boring job, but relaxing, too, to watch the flow of village life, even if it was a little more careful than before, less free-spirited.  He liked guarding houses, too, no one ever stole them.

                A weight dropped onto his shoulders, and a voice spoke just behind his head.  "'Ere, soldier boy.  Let us inside and don't say a word or I'll release the raging power of a thousand hateful souls on your ears," said Fury.

                This is not a good thing to hear just before the end of your shift.  There was a moment during which the soldier thought very, very quickly.  Something about the voice, despite its strange claim, was very believable.  He stared ahead with military rigidity as he spoke.  

                "Despite the fact that there is definitely no one within hearing, I would like to state that there have been very high winds recently, and should they cause this door what I am indicating right now with my pike to temporarily swing open I shall not even find it sufficiently worthy of note to glance in that direction."

                "Good man.  You just keep an eye on those houses and make sure no one tries to slip one into their pocket or something."  The weight vanished from his shoulders, there was a small _thump_ at his feet, and, on cue, there was a freak gust of wind that caused to the door to swing open for several moments, made a few sounds that were eerily like "Watch your step, some of us have sensitive tails" and closed it again.  And latched it from the inside.

                Flint looked around the inside of the house, taking in the unadorned walls and mostly nondescript room.  There was some furniture, and a fireplace with an ancient portrait hanging over the mantle, but the windows were blocked by thick curtains and the rooms were all very dimly lit.

                "Who's there?" called Flint, and it took him a moment to realise another voice had called the same thing at exactly the same time.

                "We're… here to help," said Flint, eventually.

                "Help?  Help who?  Help do what?  'Help' is so vague, and I've known too many 'helpful' people in the last year," said the other voice, fairly old for a human, but still possessed of an inner strength.

                "Well… this is the home of Lunpa's former leader, right?  Leader of the village, I mean, not the thieves," said Flint, proceeding slowly and carefully into the house.  The other Djinn remained at the door, quietly conversing among themselves.

                "That it may well be, but that answers none of my questions," the voice replied.

                "We want to help get rid of whoever built that fortress, whoever's directing Lunpa's new attacks on travellers.  Or, maybe more specifically, we want to help the Lunpans do that."

                "Hah!  You assume too much."

                "I do?"

                "Yes.  To begin with, you assume they want to rise up like peasants against a tyrant king."

                "Does it matter whether there's a king involved or not?"

                "No, but it matters that Adavir leads an army.  Peasants rise up, and then they die."

                "I'd feel a lot better if I could see the person I'm bandying philosophy with," said Flint, testily.

                "So would I," replied the voice.  "But you seem idealistic, and so I trust you for now."  In the frame of one door into the room, a figure appeared, standing tall but holding on for support.  "I am Ian, and I am of Lunpa's bloodline, though the son of his brother rather than a descendant.  Who are you?"

                "Flint.  A Venus Djinni," said Flint, walking into a small patch of light from a gap in the curtains.

                "Djinni… my cousin once mentioned a creature he said called itself a Djinni," said Ian.

                "That was me!" Tonic announced, joining Flint.  "I'm a Mercury Djinni.  I remember fighting Donpa- he was pretty tough for an older man, too."

                "You do look like what Donpa told me…"  Ian agreed.  "So you are Djinn, whatever _those are.  And how do you intend to overthrow Adavir?"_

                "Who's Adavir?" asked Breath.

                "Oh, thank you ever so much," grumbled Waft.  "That solves all our problems, that does."

                "You don't even know who Adavir is?" asked Ian.  "And you want to overthrow him?"

                "Well… no, no, we didn't happen to catch his name when he ambushed and imprisoned our human friends," Serac snapped.

                "We _hope he stopped at imprisonment," muttered Fugue, earning glares from everyone._

                "Humans?  Oh, yes, I heard the marching this morning.  And quite a lot of crashing about not long ago…" Ian added, thoughtfully.

                "More Djinn," Flower affirmed.

                "You know how to cause an uproar, then.  What makes you think you can handle an uprising?"

                "Only a few letters different," Granite pointed out.

                "I think you'll find," said Ian wearily, "that there's more to it."

                "How's Garet doing?" Isaac asked, hopefully.

                "Recovering," Mia replied, still in her uberserious healer mode.

                "Is that 'recovering' like he'll be up in an hour, or 'recovering' like some day he might speak again?"

                "Closer to the first."

                "Blast."

                "Isaac!"

                "Ow!  Only joking, Jenna."

                "Good."

                "You have to admit that being around a quiet Garet would be a nice change for a while."

                "I refuse to comment."

                Isaac left Jenna with Garet, not wanting to consider what the results might be if he annoyed her any further.  There was only so far you could run, even in abject terror, when you were locked in a dungeon cell.  Instead he wondered about Felix, a patch of brown-haired shadow in the corner.  They had dealt with his emotional issues at Mars Lighthouse… right?  Isaac considered having another talk with him, but didn't know what he'd say.

                Picard was still out of it, too.  It was strange, but perhaps Lemurians healed slowly (at least in the natural way).  They lived long enough that, from a lifetime perspective, Picard could take days to get back on his feet and still be up six times faster than the rest of them.

                But surely he had never taken this long to recover from other injuries and poisons…?

                "Is something wrong with Picard?" asked Isaac.

                "You're just the Incarnation of Concern, aren't you?" asked Mia, but she smiled a little as she left Garet and joined Isaac by the other Mercury Adept.  "Ah, you noticed.  Yes, Picard's suffering from a condition I've only seen once or twice before."

                "What?" Isaac breathed, horrified.

                "Technically speaking, I believe it's called 'having a poisonous arrow sticking out of your chest'."

                Isaac didn't look especially amused, though Mia knew better.  "What _would we do without your vast knowledge?"_

                "Well, you wouldn't be breathing right now, I expect," she suggested.  Something seemed to have caught Mia's attention, and she was leaning closer to Picard, inspecting the injury closely.

                "You might as well stop pretending and take off his shirt.  We all know that you're just waiting to say 'I think I can get it out if I don't have to worry about dealing with fabric'," said Isaac.

                "This whole experience is starting to give me a very good idea of what it would be like to actually be around you all day, every day," Mia commented, not looking up.

                "…Mia, you _are around me most of every day.  We like it that way."  He looked unsettled.  "…Right?"_

                "Mm?" Mia responded, nudging the arrow just slightly.

                "Mia!" Isaac burst out.

                "I'm listening," she assured him in a distracted voice.  "That's odd.  This practically looks new.  No necrosis, though.  The flesh is alive, but not repairing itself at all.  And Picard's no haemophiliac.  That's not right at all…"

                "I understood most of the words in those sentences," said Isaac in a positive, determined voice.

                "We should get it out, now," said Mia.

                "Okay.  Should I take his shirt off now, or should I let you struggle for a while before you give up and say we have no choice?"

                "That wasn't very funny the first time," was all Mia answered, taking a firm hold on the short arrow.  It was practically a miracle that it hadn't embedded itself entirely inside, with nothing but a mark of blood to show its place.

                She moved it carefully but decisively, trying to unhook it from whatever ligament it had met.  It was just before Mia jerked the metal head out that she realized the only reason it could have caught in the first place was if it was barbed-

                "Oh, Spirits," Isaac groaned as he covered his mouth and turned away quickly.

                "What?  You're squeamish about blood now?" asked Mia.

                "The blood of my friends.  In quantities like that, just after seeing the skin sort of-" Isaac began, gesturing very effectively.

                "Okay, okay, I didn't say I enjoyed seeing that either," said Mia, cutting him off.

                "Well… it's out," Isaac observed.  "Now what?"

                "Actually… I'm not sure," Mia admitted.  "There's something strange about the poison, but I don't know what it is, or why it's happening- what am I saying?  Of _course I'm sure.  We seal this thing up.  By Mercury, what was I __doing?"  The healer grimaced as she set to work with their remaining herbs.  For some reason she didn't understand, the leaves turned a strange orange shade on contact with the spilled blood, and before the Adept's eyes, Picard's injury sealed._

                "Herbs are fast," said Isaac, "but not _that_ fast."

                "Why would they keep us alive and throw us in prison if they meant for us to die anyway?" asked Jenna, frowning.

                "She is a ray of cheerful sunlight when all the world is covered in despair," Ivan remarked poetically.

                "What was I _thinking?" Mia snarled at herself again.  "I should have realised it was barbade, should have tested, should have stopped before I just yanked-"_

                "Mia, calm down.  It might have slipped your mind, but we got beaten senseless a few hours ago and you haven't rested since you woke up.  'Unconscious' and 'asleep' are subtly but vitally different," said Isaac.  "Also, those are the best herbs I've ever seen."

                "Shouldn't have reacted like that," Mia stated dully.  She was beginning to think Isaac was right.  She felt lightheaded, and the world was a little blurry.

                "You okay?" asked Isaac, noticing the unsteady motion.

                "I… I'm okay," said Mia, but too hold of Isaac's shoulder to steady herself at the same time.

                "Uh huh," said Sheba, not believed either word.

                "Easy way or hard way, you're going to sleep," Ivan seconded.

                "You're going to make me?" asked Mia.  She looked to be on the verge of laughing.

                "Yeah, we are," Sheba replied.  "Because we're actually conscious."

                "And way faster than you," Ivan added.

                "And we outnumber you four to one," Jenna finished.

                "When did I join you mutineers?" asked Isaac.

                "Right about the time you realised _you're_ outnumbered three to one," said the Mars Adept.

                "Well, whaddaya know?  You're right," Isaac agreed, nodding.

                "I still have to-" Mia started, but she could almost hear her teacher's voice in her head…  _"What good do you think you're going to be if you're falling over patients?  Whatever people might say about the care of others, you've got a responsibility to be at your best, and that means taking care of _you_, too.  Now go back to bed and come back tonight.  Go, go!  The tourniquets can wait a few hours."_

                "Still have to tell us to keep an eye on Garet and Picard, and then get unmoving," said Isaac, putting a share of his leadership in his voice as well.  Mia said nothing, just gave him a Look and then edged over to the less-drafty side of the cell, where she might manage to at least relax for a moment.  She didn't expect to get any real sleep on a stone floor…

                "In the future, if Mia ever insists I'm lying if I say she snores, I expect all of you to back me up," Isaac informed the others.

                Ivan nodded sagely for a moment.  "And when, exactly, do you next intend to have a chance to find out that she snores?" he asked, eyes not entirely innocent under his blonde fringe.

                "Oh, shut up," said Isaac, waving the Jupiter Adept off and resisting the blush.

                And in the corner by the door, Felix risked a moment's inattention to mutter "Four against one.  Thank you all so very much.  I feel like we're one big family."  No one heard him, of course, and he went back to leaning against the cell door.

                The logic of the Djinn was like this, and made perfect sense to all of them:

                1. A huge foreboding castle of darkness _must_ have a treasure vault.

                2. Even without Psynergy, the weapons of the Adepts are good ones, and if they were taken out of the Psynergy-sealed field, they'd no doubt become just as powerful as they ought to be.

                3. No megalomaniac archvillain is going to give these to his soldiers, in case they start getting ideas and bring down Psynergy-arrows on his head.

                4. So the only safe place to keep them is in the treasure vault, possibly killing those involved in placing them there, for security reasons.

                5. The only way to get the Psynergy weapons back is going to be by getting into the vault.

                6. Cake is superior to all forms of pie, excluding apple-cinnamon pie, which is in turn only exceeded by applesauce cake.

                7. The vault will be near the middle of the castle, just north (or 'behind') the throne room, which will be considered in the middle for the purposes of this incursion.  Any evidence otherwise simply reflects a technical inaccuracy in reality, such as must be dealt with in all logistic problems.

                8. Right, got all that straight?  Then let's go kick some armored- oh, what is it?

                "Was that plan supposed to actually explain how we get _in_ to the vault?" asked Quartz, ever the Venus personification of reason.

                "I thought that was obvious," said Spring, as though dealing with someone who just couldn't keep up with the rest.

                "What, then?" asked Quartz, condescendingly polite.  Spring looked at Cannon.  Quartz looked at Cannon.  The Mars Djinni looked back at both of them blankly.  "Oh.  Right."

                "Um…  I'm not sure what you've heard, but I'm not a master lockpick or anything," said Cannon.

                "Not the subtle kind, at least," Blitz remarked.

                "Oh.  Yes, quite good at practical door-opening," Cannon agreed, catching on.

                They were huddled in a shadowed alcove in the ground level of the fortress after slipping through a fracture in the foundations.  In the distance, they heard the measured steps of more soldiers, occasionally increasing in pace following a major explosion or shattering of stone.

                "The chaos-sowing team is doing pretty well," Steel admitted, and from her, this was high praise.

                "They're certainly drawing a crowd," Spring agreed in the distracted tones of a single elemental trying to keep an eye on eleven others _and formulate a plan to sneak into the core of a soldier-packed fortress.  "Those guards are in a rush."_

                "Yeah, but which way?" asked Smog.

                "I don't follow," said Spring, leaning around a corner.

                From the end of the hall -but closing quickly- came a rapid pounding of feet, and a small battalion sprinted toward the Djinn.  "_Run for it, they could be right behind us!" one shouted, and the speed of the footsteps doubled.  The guards dashed by without even thinking of glancing in the Djinn's direction._

                "Your point is well made," Spring decided after the dust settled.

                "Uh huh," said Smog.  "Hey, I just had a great idea."

                "What?" Spring snapped.

                "Why doesn't Cannon just blast holes in the walls and floor until we find whatever dungeon we're after?  It'd be quicker than looking for stairs and trying to be quiet."

                "I thought your element thought ahead," Quartz said, not waiting for Spring's response.  "We're trying to be stealthy so that they don't come along with huge axes and make Djinni con carne, remember?"

                "You think I'm suggesting stupid risks, mineral girl?" Smog shot back.

                "No, I think you're suggesting risks that become stupid simply because you're the one talking!"

                "Hey, calm down," said Corona, stepping between them.

                "_Can it, sparkbreath!" both Djinn snapped at him._

                "I'm never talking back to Dew again…" Spring vowed.

                Torch led the way down a dark corridor; her group had probably penetrated the castle deepest of all the Djinni teams, and they were currently quite deep.  Most of them were hoping to stumble across the Adepts, but Torch refused to admit to searching for them, and the others were inclined to believe her.  It was that or find out how fireproof they were without Psynergy.

                "Why the stone, anyway?  Why all the rough unshaped rock surfaces with moss and stuff on them?" Core brushed against one of the walls he was complaining about, and shuddered.  "And why are they all sort of disgustingly damp?"

                "It's expected," Torch replied.  "I don't understand.  It shouldn't be this hard to find an arcane artefact of awesome force."

                "Whoever's in charge could have at least put up signs," said Breeze sarcastically.

                "'Third Sub-Dungeon: Executions, Terrible Beasts of Darkness, Psynergy-Defeating Constructions, and Free Kittens'," Salt suggested.

                "That'd be perfect," Whorl agreed.

                "Will you shut up?" Torch demanded.  "I'm trying to think, you ankle-biting menaces."

                "Well, what do you expect?  You've got eleven elementals with you and you're trying to do everything on your own.  How about delegating?" asked Chill.

                "…Removing gates?  Actually, Garet was talking about that-"

                "Giving other people responsibility."

                "To do what?"

                "…Well, actually, that's a good question," Chill admitted.

                "It's this way," Eddy announced.  The other Djinn turned to him.  "It's in the pattern of wear on the floor, and in the moss.  You can see that plenty of people have gone along this corridor, but they always turn left, except for one path that goes right, all alone."

                "Um… good work," said Torch, off-balance.  "Let's keep moving."

                "I've been wondering," said Vine as they started following Eddy's lead, "exactly how you plan to stop whatever's blocking our Psynergy.  I mean, it could be anything."

                "Son -and I say that in a patronising way, not a familiar one, because you're an Earth-aligned misfit, if intelligent and somewhat cute- I am not going to be stopped from saving Garet, and I don't care _what_ is blocking our Psynergy, I am going to see it destroyed if it is the last achievement of my life, which it couldn't be, because we're immortal, or at least we will be as soon as we get our Psynergy back, so this is a matter of life and death and it's going to be _someone else's death_," Torch replied.

                "You know, I've heard that some grandmothers bake cookies and stuff," Echo commented.

                "I'm not your grandmother.  I'm a Mars Djinni having a very bad day."

                "Here," said Eddy.  "The path stops at this door."

                "Does it come back out?" asked Wheeze.

                "I think so.  Yeah, looks like it."

                "Good.  I didn't want to accidentally follow the one idiot who stumbled into the scorpion pit room or something," the Jupiter Djinn explained.

                "Oh.  Yes.  Quick thinking, that."  Core leapt into action and slagged the lock from the inside out, but still the rather nondescript iron door refused to move.  Torch sighed, released a wave of unquenchable heat energy, and most of the rest of it melted, too, revealing the parts that probably used to be another half-dozen locks.  Echo shoved the ruin aside and they entered.

                The Djinn simply stared for a while.  Without any conferring with each other, they all had the same thoughts.  First they wondered if this really was the Psynergy-blocker, and eventually decided that it had to be.  Then the question of how it could have been made sprang to mind, quickly shoved aside by Who Cares, Let's Get Rid Of It, who was making an incredible testimonial when How Do You Intend To Do That crashed the mental party.  The chaos only ended when Stop Sitting There Like Lawn Ornaments And Figure Something Out broke a metaphor over the others' collective heads.

                The offending thing sat in a large dish on a short steel pedestal in the middle of the room, casting wavering shadows on the walls that looked too often like silhouettes of people (or things shaped sort of _like_ people) for any of the Djinn's liking.

                "Great," said Coal.  "It's a huge fire.  It's a huge, unnatural, Psynergy-blocking fire.  Do we have a backup plan?"

**[Author's Notes]**  Hah.  Bet you thought you had seen the last of this.  Not so, it's far too much fun.  Of course, classes are going to cause trouble for actually updating, but it'll be completed, don't you doubt it.  That is, if you want it to be completed.  And the correct way of telling me that you do?  A special signalling technique called RBP, or 'review button pressing'.  Get to it.


	7. And Isn't It Ironic

**Chapter Seven: And Isn't It Iron-ic**

                "So, what's the solution to this one, mighty commander?" asked Wheeze, staring at the incredible Psynergy-blocking fire with the other Djinn.

                "I'm starting to think we should just have you vent hot air until it goes out.  How does Luff stand you?" demanded Torch.

                "I have an idea," said Chill.

                "I mean, you can't burn it, you can't poison it, you can't pull it apart, you can't corrode it, and I'd be amazed to see anyone actually freeze a fire," Torch went on.

                "Maybe we could… uh…  I don't know, actually," said Core.

                "I said I have an idea," Chill repeated.

                "It would be nice to have some more tools to work with," Vine commented.

                "Like what?" asked Core.

                "An Elemental Spirit, maybe.  I don't suppose Mercury is hanging around here anywhere?"

                "Do I look like I'm near retching?"

                "Not possible.  We don't eat.  We're not built to retch."

                "That's quite an inspiring slogan, actually."

                "Although I'm beginning to think I should leave you for the Lunpans, _I have an idea!" Chill shouted.  The other Djinn spun, genuinely startled.  "Have you really not been listening to me?"_

                "Uh…" said Salt, looking at the other Djinn, "…was she talking?"  There was a general attempt to shrug, though none of the Djinn had shoulders, and so were forced to improvise.

                "Right.  I don't know about the rest of you, but as long as this fire's going, we're in trouble, and as long as we're in trouble, our Adepts are in trouble, which is bad enough, except that as long as _they're in trouble, the entire world is in trouble, so I've had it," Chill declared._

                "Meaning what?" asked Sour.

                "I'm taking control of this before it's too late to do any good.  Now listen up, I think there's still a way to salvage this whole ordeal," the Mercury Djinn declared, marching into the room, toward the incredible heat of the blaze in its brazier.  It made her cringe, so much heat and dryness, but Picard would never falter against a simple fire- or a complicated one.

                "What?" said Torch, bewildered.  "Are you actually trying to mutiny?"  Chill spun on Torch and a familiar look was in the Djinni's eye, though not one she could ever remember from Chill before.  Slowly, very deliberately, Chill answered.

                "Arr."

                "I'm not interested in excuses," said Bane.  "You give me solutions or you bring me the heads of our enemies.  Anything less is less than I expect from Djinn of your skills."

                "I am getting so sick of hearing that," said Petra.

                "We aren't out to kill these people anyway," Kindle protested.

                "What if we find that Jenna's been killed?" asked Bane.

                "Then I'll make sure to remove the bodies' feet so their ghosts can't walk."

                "Now you're getting into the spirit of it."

                The Djinn were deep inside the fortress now, but they hadn't made any progress in finding the Adepts, and it was grating on all of them.  Bane was either so happy that it wrapped around and started coming toward happy from the other direction, or he was just being an ancient grumpy pain, because the truth was that they didn't _know_ what condition the Adepts were in.

                The Djinn had been splitting up, making circuits through the tunnels, and returning to Bane's core group, but so far they hadn't seen a single hint that the Adepts were on the planet, let alone in this fortress and in these dank, rough-walled dungeon levels.

                "This isn't fair!" Gel growled.  "We're wandering around pointlessly without finding even a hint to lead us to the Adepts after slipping down here unnoticed-"

                "Unlike Fever and Gale and the rest aboveground, we haven't blown anything up," Balm noted.

                "I know, that's bothering me too!"

                "If you want to stay unnoticed, then be _quiet!_" Crystal ordered the Mercury Djinni.

                "No, I don't really want to go unnoticed!  I want to be noticed, find the people holding the Adepts hostage, beat the location out of them, and then get back to Vale!" Gel shot back.

                Crystal and Bane looked at her.  "She's entirely out of line," Bane said.

                "She also has a point," Crystal added.

                "We all want to be back in Vale."

                "No, I mean maybe we should try finding a guard or two to lead us to our Adepts."

                "You mean beat the location out of him?  Find a hapless soldier who probably doesn't want to be here and smack him about until he give in and does something that'll probably get him killed by his superiors when he gets found out?" said Bane.

                "Well, I'm sure we could find some way of ensuring his saf-"

                "I _like this plan.  Zephyr!"  The Jupiter Djinni turned, but the elemental opposition kept him from replying with anything like 'yes, sir'.  "Find me a… what was it, Crys?  Oh, right.  Find me a hapless soldier."_

                "How's it going?" called Torch into the hole at the back of the fire-chamber.

                "Not bad," Echo reported.  "I'm through all the foundations now, but I don't know how well I'm going to be able to dig through earth.  Stone's easy, but have you ever heard of a dirt-breaker attack?"

                Torch sat back on her highly-flexible legs and tried to puzzle this one out.  Chill insisted on digging, but the ground was going to be trouble.  "Whorl, I don't suppose there's any chance you could just suck up all the-"

                "Don't finish that sentence and I won't be forced to declare myself your archenemy."

                Having got the response she expected, Torch sank back into contemplation.  Core and Coal weren't likely to do much down there, nor Wheeze or Breeze… Wheeze and Breeze…  Wheeze can't help or try to freeze and what can one expect from Breeze to put this fire out with ease…

                "Hey!  Torch!  Weyard to Mars, we have an idea!" said Vine, waving her tail in front of Torch's eyes.

                Torch jerked out of her near-trance.  "What?  Nachos?"

                "Nachos?" Vine repeated, raising in eyebrow in bewilderment.

                "Never mind.  Something to do with cheese, I think.  What's up?"

                "I was saying I think I can use vines to break apart the ground and drag it back up here."

                "Sounds good, I guess.  I just hope we don't have a ton of earth to work with before we get as deep as Chill wants.  …I guess we could always just dig another hole to hold the dirt, though."

                "Whatever.  I'll get to work, you just figure out what to do if I hit a patch of clay or something."

                The northern end of Lunpa was currently filled with the sounds of combat as the soldiers tried to comprehend what wicked force of nature had decided that they were on its part of the world-sofa.  Fever, with a rather feline attitude towards such things, had decided that _everywhere_ was his part, and had been hounding them relentlessly, with Sleet and Sap providing backup.

                "I think he's lost it," said Sleet, watching Fever begin burning his way through a wall.

                "What did he have to lose?" Sap countered.

                "Beats me, but it's gone now."

                "I really hope they don't have archers hidden away somewhere," the Venus Djinni went on.  Apparently at the sight of Fever approaching, most of the soldiers on this part of the wall had fled, giving them a moment's rest.  "Arrows would be worse than being hugged by Thor."

                "We haven't seen them yet.  You'd think the Lunpans'd have used them by now if they could."

                Two important things happened at that moment.  First, Ian finally managed to get the last of the villagers to agree to follow along with everyone else, meaning that all of Lunpa was preparing to lay siege to the fortress.

                Second, the elite Lunpan sniper squad leader said "All right, do we think we can get moving without blowing anything else to bits?  Then go!"

                "This is rather more than I expected," said Dew, sitting on Ian's shoulder.  She was looking out at the assembled villagers of Lunpa, a sea full of expressions saying 'It's about time we showed those people up in the fortress that we won't stand for oppression!  …Can I stand at the back somewhere, please?'

                "Yeah.  I thought that they were supposed to be jaded and we would have to fan the flames of revolution and prove our worth and things like that," said Char.

                "There are times when one must dispense with the usual difficulties of rabble-rousing, trying to instil rebellion in the populace, and just do it right first round.  This is one of them," said Ian.

                "I like it.  Can we get moving, then?" asked Fury.

                "Unless one of you wants to make an inspiring speech," said Ian.  "Judging by the impatience I'm seeing, I'm not sure that would be a good idea, though."

                "I've got one," said Flint.  "It's not long, don't worry."

                "I'm not so sure-" Dew began, but Flint had already hopped up a logpile and onto the roof of a house.  

                "People of Lunpa!" he shouted.  The crowd, which had started to wonder if they were going to actually be laying siege to _anything today, woke up.  "We now march forth against those who would see you kept quiet and cowed for the rest of your lives!  There is only one solution!  Well, two, but no evil villains go for winner-takes-all handball these days.  The only _remaining_ solution is to stand fast, never give up, and break down their forces like stone splitting under the force of your mighty-"_

                "Flint!" Breath hissed.

                "What?"

                "They can't _do that."_

                "Oh.  Right."  Flint cleared his throat, and checked the crowd.  They were looking confused again, muttering to each other.  He finished his speech as loudly as possible.  "There are evil people in there," he called, jabbing his tail toward the castle, "and they have my friends and all our heroes held prisoner.  They have you held prisoner within this city, and all the generations of your family to come unless they are stopped.  Let's break some heads!"

                "YES!" shouted Ian, raising a fist, and the Lunpan villagers followed suit, raising weapons (some slightly improvised) with a general cheer of determination.  The Djinn, except for Dew, who stayed with Ian, led the march toward the damaged walls, with a small army in their wake.

                "What, precisely, does 'break some heads' mean?" asked Ian, quietly.

                "It's just one of Flint's phrases," Dew replied.

                "If it's literal, I rather like it."

                "Is that as bad as it looks?" asked Steam, watching the oncoming march with concern.

                "Actually, it's much worse," Gale reported, having much better eyesight.  "But not for us.  There are Djinn at the front of that.  Dew actually did it.  The villagers have rallied together."

                "What?!  That fast?!" Tinder demanded, incredulous.  "Even Dew's not that convincing."

                "Dew's not there, actually… there she is.  Riding the shoulder of some old guy.  Actually, he looks a lot like Donpa, but not exactly the same."

                "Do you think we should call Fever and the others back?" asked Ground.

                "No, we'll be more useful if the Lunpans- the soldiers, I mean, I guess we're going to have to stop calling the bad guys 'Lunpans' -don't know where they're going to hit next."

                Ryan moved very carefully.  It wasn't that he, a soldier of the mighty fortress of Lunpa, was scared by simple dark dungeons.  But the rumours already rushing through the ranks of strange creatures that had slipped through the defences and were now wreaking havoc on the upper floors.  Also, he was starting to wonder if this army really was meant to protect Lunpa from the evil Adepts who were claiming to be heroes of all the world.  Things seemed pretty rigid for an army of guardians.

                And so he was walking carefully, because he didn't want to alert any of these tiny demons to his presence -just his luck to be the odd patrol-man out- and to give himself more time to think.  For example, if they had nothing to hide, why had he been forbidden from entering a certain area of the dungeons?  Why wasn't anyone allowed to leave the village except Adavir's 'pathfinder' parties, who tended to return with an incredible number of supplies?

                Why did his commanding officer whack him with a truncheon whenever he asked these sorts of questions?

                "What do you think, hapless-wise?"

                "Eight, maybe nine out of ten."

                "Doesn't look like an idiot."

                "Exactly.  Looks more like a naïve kid.  Practically brimming with hapless."

                "Easily… distracted, though."

                "It's not like we're going to run into a lot of giggling girls down here."

                "Oh, all _right.  Bag him."_

                Ryan heard the voices, but chose to believe that they were just a couple of other soldiers making their rounds on patrol.  He decided to keep believing this until he reached a long straight corridor, at which point he would run like a gazelle fleeing a cheetah in mechanical assault armor.

                The nearest straightaway wasn't near enough.  A purple shape rocketed out of the shadows and orbited his head a few dozen times in a couple of seconds, startling Ryan long enough that by the time he tried to ran, his feet were stuck to the floor.  He found this out at about the same time that the rest of him hit the floor, but managed not to get badly hurt.

                "Don't expect much, kid, that's strong gel," said a bizarre blue creature as it walked up beside his head.  "Now, what's your name?"

                "You're going with pleasantries?!" demanded the purple thing, hovering over him.

                "I don't see why not.  There's no reason to terrify him.  I'm Gel, by the way, and that's Zephyr."

                "Ryan…" said Ryan, wishing vaguely that he had thought up a fake name.

                "Good name.  Strong name.  Okay, Ryan, how would you like to perform an invaluable service to the side of good and justice _and not have to get smacked with a big rock so that you don't alert the rest of the soldiers down here?"_

                "Uh… if I can trust you on the first part, I guess it sounds good…"

                "Zephyr, we've snared ourselves an idealist.  This day just gets better.  Come on, Ryan.  You'll probably want to leave your boots behind."

                Garet was beginning to look much better, in Isaac's opinion, but he still wondered if he could be missing something, since Mia wasn't awake to see signs he didn't know.  Jenna was in a sort of fragile cheerful state, leaning over Garet and waiting for him to come back to reality.

                "I think it's the peacefulness on his face," said Sheba.  "Content, but not the dead kind."

                "I think it's the fact that he can't screw things up with a stupid remark," said Ivan.

                "Do you have to take shots at him all the time?" she demanded.

                "No.  Call it a hobby."

                "Ivan!" Sheba hissed.

                "Look, if Garet were in serious trouble, he could count on me to do whatever I could.  Considering that, I think I'm granted a few hundred shots when the opportunity presents itself," Ivan replied.

                "Can we get back to the topic of Djinn, then?"

                "What's left to say?  They aren't here.  Something happened to them because we've lost our Psynergy.  They should be immortal, so they probably aren't dead, but they're more likely to be trapped somewhere outside Lunpa.  If we're right that there's just some strange force in here that keeps us from using Psynergy," Ivan summarized.

                "That sounds like it," Sheba admitted.  "What now, then?"

                "There isn't much we can do inside this cell, so I think that's what we've got to fix first."

                "Shh!"  Ivan looked around, wondering where it the sound could have come from, but he stayed quiet as well.  Eventually, a sound made itself known in the silence of the deep dungeon, a rhythmic tapping of boots on stone.  It got steadily louder, until Ivan could hear it directly through the narrow barred window in the door.

                At the loudest point, the shadows beside the door seemed to swirl.  Felix leapt up from his crouch and launched his arm through the gap, pulling the soldier over.  There was a moment's sound of painful double-impact as the soldier hit the door and his other fist at the same time, but Felix kept a hold of the man's uniform and began reaching through further with both arms.

                "Felix?  What are you doing?" asked Isaac.

                "Getting keys.  We all want out, and this seems like a good way to do it," he replied.

                "And if you're found before you actually get those keys?" asked Jenna.

                "The next patrol won't come by for twenty-three minutes.  What did you think I was doing over in the corner, writing a speech?  I've been listening to these Lunpans making their rounds.  There's a pattern, and we've got some free time" -Felix paused and grunted with the effort of reaching too far, then sharply exhaled, pulling back in- "and the keys to the cell."

                There was silence in their cell, except for the thump of the unsupported and unconscious soldier hitting the opposite wall, and the faint jingling of the key ring Felix now held.

                "He's getting better," Ivan remarked, remembering the old, gloomy Felix.

                "He's getting inventive," Sheba added.

                "Garet and Picard are still down," Isaac pointed out.

                "'M awake, stop bothering me, 'm not g'nna be late for Krad'n's class," Garet mumbled, slowly trying to sit up, his eyes still mostly closed.  Jenna yelped just slightly, hugged him so hard Isaac expected his friend to go back under again for lack of air, and the old tempered-steel-with-a-temper look returned to Jenna's face.

                "That just leaves our blue-haired friends to wake up," said Felix, who was now reaching through the window for the lock and finding that even though there was enough space to reach through, the lock at least had been intelligently positioned.  He fumbled a few times, discovered that he was trying to unlock a tiny fracture in the wood, and hissed a minor litany of profanity as a few splinters jabbed his hand.

                "Mia?" called Isaac, softly.  He placed his hand on her side and shook just a little.  "Mia, we've got to move-"

                "Oh, don't do that, she gets catlike," said Jenna, just as Mia lashed out and attempted to savage Isaac's hand.  Only her total lack of claws saved him.  Isaac frowned as she rolled away from him and curled her legs up.

                "What do you suppose a bucket of water would make her do?" asked Ivan.

                "Relax, maybe purr," Sheba answered.  "Ivan, she's a Mercury Adept.  Think before asking."

                Isaac sighed theatrically.  "Well, I guess I'll have to make the incisions myself.  Where's that dagger-"  Mia's hand snapped out and grabbed him by the wrist.

                "You're not trained to cut anyone open," said Mia, firmly if a little indistinctly.

                There was another salvo of swearing from the door.  "I dropped the keys!" Felix snarled.  He suddenly realised that a few voices were getting louder down the corridors, as if someone was approaching.  "What?  There shouldn't be any guards yet… blasted… dang it… oh, why did I already use all the good ones…"  Just as Felix discovered that, having reached as far through the space as he could, getting his arm back inside wasn't happening anytime soon, the voices resolved into words.

                "This had better be the right way," said one.

                "Of course it is," said another.  "Well, probably.  This is the way they told us never to go."

                "Smart kid.  I think I like him," said a third.

                "Crys, you like everyone who isn't actively trying to kill you."

                "Maybe your standards are unrealistic.  Hey, what's that?"

                "It's an arm."

                "Looks familiar.  Still attached, too, that's good.  Oh, it's you, Felix."

                Everyone in the cell who couldn't see outside the door but could now hear the voices turned toward the exit, suddenly recognizing the voice.  They had all known it for a long time, but most of them (especially Ivan and Garet) had never thought they would be happy to hear it.

                "_Bane?"_

                "I can't believe this is the best idea you had for dealing with stone, Chill," said Torch, down a very deep hole.  "Honestly, _melting the rock?  I know, I know, flames that pierce all defence, but wouldn't a Venus Djinni be more useful?"_

                "Well, Torch, to be, honest, there's two reasons," said Chill, back up at the top, almost wishing Djinn could sweat as the heat of the anti-Psynergy fire raged.  "Firstly, I think you're faster than anyone else for this particular task."

                Torch focused her power again, turning the stone ahead of her from cold grey to orange, then red, and to her surprise, give way.  It shouldn't have been able to do that unless there was something other than solid rock on the other side, but what would be down underground so far…

                "And the other?" asked Wheeze, curiously.

                "The other is that all fortresses need water, which is most easily found underground, and I've always wanted to get Torch back for some of those smart remarks at Mars Lighthouse," said Chill.

                "…Water?" Torch repeated.  The last of the rock fell into the current of the underground river, and what felt like a flood with a grudge came rushing up the tunnel.


	8. Rime and Reason

**Chapter Eight: Rime and Reason**

                Once the cell door was open, the Djinn got right down to business.  It was a little unnerving for the Adepts, who were used to their partner elementals as being a force of chaos, only more random.  And that was on the good days.

                "Tell me everything," said Bane.

                "Yeah, that won't take long," Crystal muttered sarcastically as she looked Isaac over.  "You appear to have managed to not get yourself too badly killed during our separation."

                "We stumbled through somehow," Isaac replied, grinning.

                "How's Garet?" asked Flash.  The Adept had dropped back into unconsciousness shortly after insisting he was awake.  Oddly enough, the warmth of a Mars Adept jumping onto his chest and bouncing up and down a few times turned out to be precisely what he needed to wake up.  But we all knew Garet was weird already.

                "Wh…" Garet grunted.  It might have been a question.  Slowly he rose to his elbows and half-opened his eyes.  "Mnh?"  It was definitely a question.

                "_How dare you?!" Jenna barked at him._

                "J'na?" he suggested.  This didn't go over well either.

                Jenna made a sound of exasperation and offence, then turned her back on him dramatically.  "Honestly, I thought you cared about me."

                "Lv yu," Garet insisted.

                "Oh _really?  Well, maybe I was watching the wrong person, but I don't think I saw _you_ drop your weapon and agree to go along if they didn't hurt me, __did I?"_

                "Bg hmr," Garet tried to explain, frowning at her groggily.  "Dnt gt ch'nce."

                "Big hammers aside," said Ivan, "I think we need to get Picard back on his feet before we go anywhere and before he gets any worse."

                "He's not looking good," Gel observed, standing at Picard's side- actually, beside his head, watching his shallow breathing and occasional twitching.

                "It's like he's fighting a battle of wills with whatever poison they hit him with.  I don't know too much about what makes Lemurians different from regular people, beyond the blue hair and golden eyes," said Mia, glad to be awake and sensible again, but not to see that Picard's condition hadn't improved since she fell asleep.

                "I wasn't allied with Picard for long," said Balm.  "I don't know how helpful I can be either."

                "That leaves you, kid," said Gel.

                "I'm older than you!" Fog protested.

                "Funny how these things work, isn't it?"

                "…What?"

                "Just do it," Mia interjected, then stopped.  "Wait.  What _are you doing?"_

                "That's exactly my point.  I can't do a thing.  We're trapped as physical forms- more so than before, I might add.  I had no idea pain hurt so much," said the Djinni, shaking his head.

                "There has to be something," Crystal insisted.  "But I'm no good with poisons.  We should have brought Salt.  Even Tonic."

                "Well, unless there's some sort of anti-field-of-Psynergy-un-nullifying-reverser that one of you has been keeping in your pack, I don't see what I-"

                "_YOU'RE INSANE!" Torch screamed as she was carried out of the deep hole in the earth by a massive torrent of water._

                "You volunteered," said Chill, slightly reprimanding as she watched the elder Djinni rush by.

                "_I DID NOT!  YOU MUTINIED!" Torch shot back as she hit the other wall._

                "There's no need to be hostile," Chill insisted.

                "_I sure can't think of a better time!" said Torch, losing volume as her voice wore but not giving up an ounce on intensity.  The floor of the room was already covered in a few inches of water, and rising rapidly.  "Coal?  Core?  Where are you?"_

                "Up where it's safe," said Core, who had managed to find a small perch near the top of the wall.  Coal sat beside him, watching the water rise with trepidation.

                "I have to admit," said Flint, who was half submerged already, "that this isn't as bad as I expected.  I mean, it's all fluid instead of that reliable rock-solid feeling, but it's still got the bublurglplah-pfff!"

                "You realise that you have to breathe now, right?" said Breeze, hovering just above the Venus Djinni.  Flint glared at him and swung his tail scorpion-style, launching a high wave at Breeze, who quickly discovered how hard it was to fly with wet feathers.

                "Come on… come on…" Eddy mumbled, and only then did the other see that the water was about to rise high enough to flow over the edge of the massive fire-dish.  Oddly, it hadn't yet hissed on contact with what had to be hot metal, but that was far from their minds as they watched the droplet tips over the lip and toward the embers, heralds of a flood…

                "-can possibly do," said Fog, and suddenly the world burst into colour.

                It hadn't been black-and-white before, but the mere light spectrum couldn't compare to the sight of a Djinni, couldn't possibly match the power to see the Psynergy in everything, see it flow and spread, see the water in the stone or the sand on the wind… and suddenly it was back.

                "Oh sweet Spirits…" said Isaac, while Ivan and Sheba gasped with relief as their mind-link returned and the world opened up a little more.  Picard twitched on the floor and made a sort of choking sound, bringing them back to reality.

                "How about now?" asked Mia.

                "What?  We've got Psynergy back- you fix him," said Fog.

                Mia raised a hand and tried to cast Psynergy, but absolutely nothing happened.  "It's open to us, which must mean that Torch figured out how to get it back, but that doesn't mean we've charged any power up.  And I don't want to risk any longer."

                "Oh, all _right.  **Fog allies with Picard!"  Then Fog was gone, merely a swirl of blue light diving into the Lemurian, hoping that he would be able to do something once he got there.**_

                Picard's consciousness seemed bemused by his Djinni's return.  _It is about time one of you came back.  What is going on?_

                _You really don't want me to explain the situation back in the land of the upright.  I want to know what's going on here._

_                Simple enough.  That arrow was poisoned, and Lemurian immune systems are different from the rest of the humans of Weyard, since our country is sealed off from most of the world's diseases.  Spring water keeps us safe from some, but apparently this is a different situation._

                _How can I help you out?  We've got Psynergy back now, you know._

_                Actually, I did not.  And I don't really know how you can help, either.  It seems to be… instinctive, almost._

                Picard's mind was still untouched by the pathogen, but the rest of his system was nearly flooded by it.  Fog tried doing whatever was instinctive to force it back, and found that he could make some progress, at least in a metaphysical way- he had no idea how it was working in the real world.  But the poison was like a rubber wall; as soon as he let up the 'pressure', it reclaimed its lost ground.

                _This isn't good, Fog decided._

                _I suppose blasting it with Mercury Psynergy is out of the question?_

_                That depends.  I might be able to do something if you don't mind your hands freezing off as a side effect._

_                Why did it have to be you?  Where's Spring?_  Picard gave a sort of mental wink after this question, to let Fog know that he wasn't serious, but it got him thinking, too.  Spring, when pressed to explain how he healed anyone, sometimes compared his power to the flow of fresh water, which was why he was named Spring.  The flow of the pure into the corrupted…

                _I have an idea.  It's dangerous, though, Fog warned him.  Picard just smiled resignedly._

_                At this moment, that only means that it fits in with everything else in my life._

_                Okay.  Here's how it goes._

                Picard was a little nervous at the suggestion, since it would either work perfectly or it would kill him.  A bit of middle ground would have been reassuring.  Shaking his head at that thought, or at least doing the equivalent, Picard agreed, and then watched and waited as Fog dove into the hostility beyond the wall of poison.  After giving the Djinni a head start, Picard's consciousness went too, struggling as though he sailed in a stormy ocean of malignancy.

                He left the protection of his untainted mind behind and instead dove into the pathogen unprotected, into the paths of his body.  Psynergy was a sort of alchemy of its own, really.  Some mix of the powers of the mind and an inexplicable magic, working together to achieve great things.

                What Picard was really glad about right now was the mental half, because that was how he travelled now, and the ship analogy seemed more and more appropriate.  He ran from place to place on the 'deck', coursing through his own nerves and taking the poison with him.

                _Trim the sails and arm the cannons, Picard laughed to himself.  _I'm hunting pirates, but I know the waters better than they do.__

                Everywhere he went, Picard flexed muscles in just the right way, forcing his blood to flow as he wished, dragging the poison in a way it couldn't help.  It wasn't conscious, of course, but the mariner let himself imagine it was- it made its frustration all the more enjoyable.

                And his destination was clear- he sailed to meet Fog, who was working now on two things- first, gathering Psynergy to try to cast Cure Poison, and second, lending strength to the Lemurian's heart.  Picard dove from nerve to nerve, if here were sailing he would have been bouncing between waves, luring the poison toward its end and his only chance.

                Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was already there.  _Nicely done, Fog said, and let his Psynergy loose.  Picard's heart pumped faster, worrying the Adepts watching him out there, but Fog knew what he was doing.  Picard's entire body had become a filter, dragging the pathogen through the paths Picard had chosen until it reached his heart, and on the other side of that blue-glowing core, the ocean was calm and clear once more._

                "Where are they?" Adavir demanded.  "I have rabble at the gate and everyone falls apart?"

                "We've never faced an uprising before, sir," his commander pointed out.

                "That is precisely why I want discipline _now_.  See to it."  The commander dashed off, and Adavir decided that the Blaze of Glory had been extinguished too long to wait for soldiers to find the problem.  "Out of the hall!" he proclaimed, and the attendants practically vanished, so swiftly did they leave.  When it was empty, Adavir stalked over to one of the four torches.  It would be a sacrifice, but surely safer than allowing Psynergy within Lunpa.

                With a wave of his arm, the torch's fires died away, and with another, they leapt to life again, this time wholly different, though it looked precisely the same.  And from it, waves rolled out in all directions, waves that blocked the flow of Psynergy.  It couldn't be destroyed, but it did need to flow, or else it was useless.  And when one intended to make enemies of the heroes of all Weyard, making them useless was very high on one's list.

                Fog crashed onto the cell's stony floor face first, having fallen out of mid-air after the Psynergy null-force swept over them.  The damp, gritty rock utterly failed to be cheerful, but after his success with Picard, the Djinni nearly forgave it for hitting him.

                "Got him!" Fog announced triumphantly.  "The poison's gone."

                "So's our Psynergy.  Again," Ivan remarked.  "This is just depressing.  Don't get me wrong, Gust, it's good to see you, but we're in the bottom of a dungeon filled with guards and no Psynergy.  We're not going to get out of this any time soon."

                "I hate to admit it, but the eight of us probably can't do much against however many soldiers they've got," Isaac agreed.

                "Eighty," said Scorch.

                "What?" asked Sheba, as though she had misheard the Djinni.

                "You said eight.  However, eight humans plus seventy-two Djinn equals eighty," he said, simply.

                "You guys?" Jenna realised.  "No offence, but what are you going to do, demoralise them with cuttingly insightful shots at their inadequacies?"

                "No," said Scorch, slowly.  "I'm going to melt the armor off them and beat whatever's left into submission."  Saying that, Scorch turned and rammed into the wall, releasing a fiery explosion from his body on contact with the stone.

                Most of the Adepts leapt to their feet.  "_How on Weyard-?"_

                "I see we're going to have to explain things to them," said Petra, rather smugly.

                With the Djinn providing backup and Ian as their leader, Dew was confident in the rallied villagers.  They had already spread out enough to cover all the entrance to the fortress- at least, all the entrances that didn't tunnel right through the mountains and end a little west of Bilibin, and she just _knew_ there would be one of those.

                "I do hope you have a good plan.  Otherwise I fear that this revolution is going to be literal and complete- that is, everything will end up exactly the way it started.  Possibly with more bodies than before," said Ian.

                "Well, there _is a bit of waiting involved…  Flower!  Lull!  Granite!" called the Mercury Djinni.  "I want you three to stay alert.  If fighting starts, I want a defensive aura, a peace-barrier, and immediate healing for anyone who's been hurt."_

                "What are we waiting _for?" asked the old man.  Now that they had reached the gates, his lethargy had faded.  There was a sort of defiant vitality in Ian, an intent to be active even if he was limited by age._

                "Personally, I'm waiting for someone to open that gate.  I may not be human, and I may not be too experienced in war, but I do know better than to lay siege to a great big well-supplied castle with a bunch of villagers," said Dew.

                "What you're telling me…"

                "Is that I intend for this to be the first siege in history to be over by suppertime.  Which would be good, because I don't much care for this whole 'hunger' idea.  How do you stand it?" asked the Djinni.

                "Eating suffices for most of us," Ian replied, dryly.

                Spring stared in absolute shock.

                "What's with him?" asked Meld.

                "You've got to admit, it's an impressive hoard," said Ember.

                The Djinn were gathered at the main door to the treasure room.  It was mostly well-arranged, with various artefacts on shelves on the walls, weapons hanging in racks, armor on stands, and jewels carefully organised by type, but whoever had done the storing had simply broken down and let tradition have its way with the coins.  They were spread, they were heaped.  Glittering dunes rolled across the floor.

                "Hagabalabuh," Spring gabbled.

                "That some kind of Mercury Djinni expression?" asked Blitz.

                "Of course not," Shade replied.  "It's just babbling.  Never thought Spring was one for treasure, though.  Hey, Spring."  Spring did not move, simply sat on the stone floor gazing straight ahead.  "That's a lot of treasure, isn't it?"

                "Ungk," Spring replied.

                "What is it, the sapphires?" Shade suggested.  Spring shook his head.

                "The golden coin-desert," Smog offered.  Another shake.

                "The equipment that was obviously once carried by great heroes of ages long past and is now once again within our grasp?" asked Ether.

                "Uh-uh," Spring squeaked.

                "The part where our Psynergy came back for half a minute and we unleashed a terrible storm of elemental vengeance on the door, reducing a giant foot-thick slab of wood and metal into smoke and a few molten patches on the walls?"

                "That just might have been it, Cannon," said Spring, who had found his voice.

                "It was one of my better Fireballs, I thought," Ember remarked.  "It's been a long time since I had any attack power, too.  Speaking of which, what use is the power to recharge Psynergy when there _is_ no Psynergy to recharge?"

                "Beats me.  Ask whoever's behind all this when we find him," said Steel, marching (okay, Venus Djinn waddle and everyone knows it) into the treasure room.  "First, let's get our Adepts' weapons out of here and back where they belong."

                "Protruding from the evil?" asked Meld.

                "Whenever possible," Steel agreed.

                "Something about this just doesn't seem right…" said Haze, flapping slowly among the central turrets on the fortress.  He and Gale were trying to keep an eye on everything at once, and not much enjoying the effects this had on their brains.  It was a bit like watching a heavily fortified anthill in which every ant had suddenly gone completely insane.

                "Which part?  I can't really tell who anyone is any more," Gale moaned.

                "Maybe you shouldn't be flying upside down."

                "What are you talking about?  You're the one with your… oh.  Yes, I suppose that's sky down there."

                "Seriously, Gale, I see something strange," Haze insisted.  "I think we should find the others, maybe even Fever."

                "What on Weyard would you intentionally inflict Fever on?" asked the Djinni 'leader'.

                "Look," he said, pointing with a foot at a battlement beneath them and toward the gate.  "There are a bunch of Lunpan soldiers just creeping along there in front of the ramparts."

                "With Mud and Sleet on the loose, I'd be creeping too."

                "But they must know some of us can fly, so why stay low?  The only people who can't see them at all are the villagers down there.  And," Haze went on, looking closer, "they're carrying these weird… things."

                "Things?  Well, that _is worrying," said Gale, and Haze was halfway into protesting when he realised she was serious.  "Let's get down there."_

                A few Lunpans, less than a dozen, were indeed crawling along the tops of the walls toward the very edge of the fortress, taking care to remain out of sight as they did so.  At least, out of sight as far as the villagers below were concerned.  Gale followed them easily, and sent Haze to find a few more Djinn.

                The 'things' were metal, and looked a bit like swords designed to be blunt on all sides.  It wasn't until she got close enough to see that there were extra bits attached instead of a hilt that Gale stopped wondering why anyone would use cylindrical swords in battle.

                Gale wondered what to do.  She would feel bad about slaying the lot of them, especially if they weren't actually out to cause trouble.  Maybe those were just white-flag tubes to announce surrender.  Launching them into a fatal drop with a fierce windstream would be impolite.

                Tubes.  Yes, they _were_ carrying tubes.  How very odd…

                "Ian," said one of the Lunpan villagers, "we were rather hoping that we might be doing something once we got here.  Marching on the evil fortress is good, but we had to march all of two hundred feet, and now I'm wondering if there's even a reason for me to be hauling this thing around."  He shook the eight-foot halberd meaningfully.

                "Yes, yes, in good time.  Dew informs me we have people on the inside," said Ian.

                "Can't it tell them to hurry up?" he asked, eyeing Dew.

                "Yes, I expect she could, except that they're undoubtedly already working as fast as they can."

                "Which is a lot faster than any humans I've ever met," said Dew.  "And much faster than you think, I suspect.  Halberds are impressive, but that's got to be the most unwieldy weapon I've seen since Garet's spaghetti-rapier."

                "There's someone!" shouted another villager, one who had been prudent enough to keep an eye on the battlements.  Ian, Dew, and the halberd-carrier turned to scan the top of the wall, and indeed they saw a few people trying to keep out of sight behind the ramparts.

                "Those them?  It's about time," said the man.

                "No…" said Ian.  "Somehow I doubt that those are our allies."

                "Taller than most Djinn, for one thing."  Dew noticed the looks she was getting.  "Oh, okay, _all_ Djinn, are you happy now?"

                "Dew!" Breath shouted.  "They're arguing, looks like they're having difficulties with something, but I get the feeling we're about to have some trouble-"

                "Oh, to hell with you all!  It goes like _this!"  One of the crouching Lunpans leapt up, holding the metal rod up rather like a crossbow, and a sound like a compressed roll of thunder echoed off the walls of every building in the village._

                Ian sighed as blood spread over his clothes.  It started from a point on his chest, where the fabric seemed to have suddenly torn itself.  With a weary, wistful expression, he looked at Dew on his shoulder.  "So it is.  I expect you to take care of them, Dew."  And then, without any complaint or resistance, he collapsed and life fled his body.

                Lunpa was blanketed in silence.  Ian's fall was heard with all the clarity of a feather dropping beside your ear, though to Dew it was like the tongue of a great iron bell crashing to the bottom of a belltower.

                Screaming replaced the silence, and by sheer reflex Lull released her power.  Music and light swirled through the air, coating everything in sight.  One of the strangely armed Lunpans tried to fire a second deadly bolt, but for some reason it would not launch, nor would the arrows let go of the village archers' bowstrings when they attempted to fire back.

                In contrast to most of the people in the area, who were either shouting because Ian was dead, shouting because of these new weapons, or shouting because they had been limned in shimmering light that made it looks like the world was an incredibly complicated soap bubble, Dew's mind was a dead black void.

                What now?  She didn't know these people, they didn't trust her, and they hadn't even started to invade the castle.  Why hadn't she realised how much it hinged on him?  They would fall apart, countless people were going to die and it was Dew's fault for not seeing what Adavir did.

                She snapped back into reality when Flower whacked her (lightly, to be fair) with her tail.  "Stop that.  I may not have known you as long as Tonic and Spritz, but I do know what a Mercury Djinni in despair looks like.  It hasn't fallen apart yet, but if you do, everything else will follow."

                Dew looked startled for a moment, a bit like someone watching a broken mirror fit itself back together and erase the fractures.  Then she looked at Flower.  "I suppose you'll credit that to the wisdom of the ancient mountains or some such thing."

                "Rocks aren't that bright.  Believe me, I've asked.  Now get to work, or we'll have Fury taking charge and never live to see another moonrise," said Flower.  She looked down at Ian.  "I didn't know him all that well- none of us did -but I'm sad to see him go."

                But Dew wasn't listening, the idea of a Mars Djinni in the lead having terrified her the rest of the way to action.  "Char!  Flint!  The gates.  I wan them gone.  Granite, protect Waft, she's going after those cannon-archers up there.  Breath, Fugue, find any of the other Djinn in the area.  Tonic, Lull, calm everyone down  I've had enough of this place and want today over with."

                "Sheesh.  Has Isaac been giving you lessons or something?" asked Flower.

                "No," said Dew.  She gave a menacing glare at a person coming over to Ian, who lay rather peacefully on the grass.  When the man was driven off, the Mercury Djinni looked down at her so-temporary ally.  "It's mostly in the voice."


	9. Pachelbel's Cannon

**Chapter Nine: Pachelbel's Cannon**

                Dew watched in grim satisfaction as Char's flamethrower and Flint's gashing tail savaged the thick wooden gates of Lunpa Fortress.  A violet tornado was drilling back and forth along the battlements above as Waft chased down and subdued those lethal archers.  Occasionally Granite's aura sparked yellow as one of the enemy Lunpans proved how slowly they caught on by firing another shot at the avenging Jupiter Djinni.

                "Are you sure you don't want him out of here?" asked Fugue.

                "Yes.  Ian's going to see this through to the end," Dew replied, not even looking away from the progressing battle.  It was a bit one-sided to count as a battle, but as soon as Ian was hit by a metal bolt from that miniature cannon, Dew lost all interest in holding back.

                "What are those tube things, anyway?" asked the Mars Djinni.

                "I don't know.  Like blowguns that don't need to be blown, or explosive crossbows, I guess."

                "Mars bows?" Fugue suggested.

                "Oh, yes, we really need the Lunpans to associate you guys with the weapon that killed their leader."

                "Blastbows, then."

                "That's something.  What are you doing here talking, anyway?"

                "Remember my power?  It's pretty useless to drain enemy Psynergy when you're inside a field that blocks Psynergy."

                "That's not all you do," Dew insisted.

                "Yeah, it is.  The other fiery stuff is all Psynergy, which, like I said-"

                "Play for us, Fugue," said Dew.  She spoke calmly, but the words were a command.  And watching the Djinn as they worked, watching the crowd in wait like a giant wolf pack, ready to be unleashed on the soldiers within, Fugue agreed.

                She focused on the notes.  Usually a quick, lively chord was all it took to cut the enemies' reserves down a bit, but this would be more detailed.  Starting slowly, Fugue let one tone play.  A red note rolled and swirled up above them, fading into the sky.

                Then another, and a pair, a trill, and Fugue played the notes of power, letting music flow across the battlefield, crashing against the stone walls like a great wave.  The walls didn't even twitch, of course, but in the hall beyond, some of the soldiers began to tremble.

                Luff held up a wing, and behind him, in an orderly line that had taken twenty minutes just to organise so none of the Djinn felt affronted, the others stopped.  They crept through the corridors unseen, mostly because the inner halls were nearly empty, but they were taking care not to walk into another battle like the one in the kitchens.

                "What is it?" whispered Mold.

                "Got something," Luff replied.  "This looks like a major thoroughfare we're coming onto.  Wide hall, very fancy decoration, suits of armor on the walls, tapestries, you name it."

                "Tapestry Bomb," Shine muttered.  "I do hope someone creates it, if nothing else."

                "All of which _means_ that we're probably close to the throne room- Gasp, don't start, you _know_ there's a throne room, every castle has to have a throne room.  And that's where the bad guy behind all this is going to be.  It's like clockwork," Luff stated.

                "Think we should charge in?" asked Forge.

                "Sounds like a great way to get killed," Iron replied.

                "Kid's right," Luff agreed.  "We'll have to be careful, or we could get trapped, and then who knows where we'll wind up.  This guy knows about Psynergy, he knows enough about Djinn that his troops knew what we were… we've got the powers of the Elements, but we won't have the element of surprise for long."

                Now, one of the major problems with moving in a line is that anything said at the front has to get passed down so the people at the end know what the decisions are.  In this case, the people at the end consisted of Geode, who was by now on the verge of exploding in terror.

                "The hall up ahead is lined with heavily armored knights," Squall reported first.  Then, after another exchange, she added "They're all carrying carpet bombs … the door is locked with clockwork that'll trap us while the bad guys come out of hiding … and we're going to charge in, even though the leader behind all this has power over a fifth element that we don't know about."

                The Djinn started moving again, into the wider hall, careful not to stay in the open.  After a few moments, the Venus Djinn noticed that they were suddenly outnumbered.  "Where's Geode?" asked Iron.

                "Squall?" Luff called after a quick glance showed only two Venus Djinn.

                "How did you know it was me?  You have no proof!" Squall shot back.

                "Mm-hm," Luff muttered.  "Mold, Iron, go get him.  If he's rigid with fear, carry him along; we can use him to break down the doors."  The Djinn saluted (a bit sarcastically) with their tails and marched off, and all the others turned on Squall.  "As for you, what do you think you're doing at a time like this?  You can't be-"

                "Luff," she said quickly.

                "_Don't_ cut me off.  I thought we had-"

                "_Sir!_" she insisted, dashing forward, and then Luff was clocked soundly with the end of a pike.  "Old people should not be allowed to lead," Squall grumbled as she dropped his attacker with a lightning bolt.  And then she had to wonder if the power to see the future extended to Djinn too, as half the suits of armor stepped off their platforms and drew weapons.

                "You want to take anything else?" asked Mist.

                "Nah, this is probably good," Cannon decided.

                "If we can haul it all," Quartz reminded them.

                "I still say we should hitch up some sort of sleigh design," said Smog.

                "That's exactly why we don't listen to you," Steel explained.  "Let's go, or we'll be too late to do any good."

                "This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense," Chill insisted, floating quite comfortably on the surface of the pool.  The great blaze was definitely doused, there was nothing left to burn, and the whole fire-bracket was underneath a foot of water.

                "Now I'm definitely going to make you pay," said Torch, darkly.  She was still quite soaked.  "You had me melt that rock to get some dark underworld's entire water supply up here, and it only worked for thirty seconds."

                "The fire's still out," Breeze pointed out.

                "Do you want me to list the number of ways that's not helpful?  We need our Psynergy back.  I say we drain the water and just eradicate whatever's left of this thing," Torch declared, determinedly.

                "No, we're done here," Echo stated.  "This just isn't the only thing that can block our powers."

                "You mean we've got to soak another of these?!" asked Core, horrified.

                "Nah," Whorl decided.  "When we did put it out, there was a little while that we had Psynergy back."

                "About as long as it would take for someone to realise what was happening and start another one of these, probably," Sour agreed.  "And there aren't any people down here, so the new one must be higher up."

                "At last we get to cause some damage," said Wheeze and Vine simultaneously.

                "In that case…" said Coal, slowly, "I think we have a big bad guy to find.  And fast."

                "Very fast," Torch affirmed.  Coal flashed brightly, letting his power roll over all the other Djinn, and then the dozen of them were gone in a blink and cloud of steam.

                The problem with fighting a suit of armor became very clear to all the Djinn as soon as they had shaken off flashbacks to the battle with the Sentinel.  Since there was no one inside, your enemy was actually a bunch of metal plates with a pointy, heavy, or sharp object in its hand that it wanted you to have, hopefully in a vulnerable spot.

                "It's satisfying and all," said Shine, blasting at the thick plates of a knight until anyone inside would have had to have a ribcage two inches deep, "but when they just won't drop…"

                "I know what you mean," Squall agreed, flitting about and trying not to get skewered as she slowly turned her own enemy into slag.  Lightning took much longer to have any effect on these than it did on any normal foe.  "They melt way too slowly."

                "They're also bloody indestructible if you're not made for fighting!" Fizz yelped, sprinting down the hall with a clanking foe in pursuit.  Squall risked a moment's inattention to fuse its knees solid, giving Fizz an easier time of escape.

                "I don't know about that," said Spark, who was making a variety of gestures at another suit.  It might not have been bright, but it certainly seemed to get the idea the Mars Djinni was trying to get across.  Lance ready, the armor clanked forward, thrust, and Spark twisted aside.  With a creaking sound like blowing up a metal bag and popping it, the knight buried its spearhead in an ally's back.  The skewered armor spun, swinging the first one into the wall and blocking the corridor from reinforcements.

                "Hey, good plan," Rime agreed.  He performed a flying kick against one suit's leg, just to get attention, and then lured it in as Spark had done.  He grinned, or would have if anyone knew where a Djinni's mouth is, as the lance bit firmly into stone.

                The grin faded quickly when the knight drew a broadsword with its other hand, and Rime noticed that his only escape route currently had a solidly placed lance in the middle of it.

                The newly freed Adepts, still weak, crept through the dungeons toward the surface with a cloud of Djinn and one very reluctant Lunpan tagging along.  Bane justified the stealth by telling himself that _yes_, naturally they were going to get up there and wreak havoc despite their earlier defeat… just not quite yet.

                "And this is Ryan," said Balm, waving to the still-jittery young soldier. "He's simultaneously on the enemy's side and helping us, meaning that he has very trustingly put his life in our hands, since he'll be sure to get a _very_ short trial if we lose or get caught, and the remainder of his life after the trial will be within the calculating ability of the fingers on one of Gust's hands."

                The Jupiter Djinn helpfully flapped up to eye height and showed off his total lack of arms.

                "I've already got the idea," Ryan said glumly.  "I'm not even interested in this.  Adavir just said everyone gets into the army or gets out of Lunpa.  Not that anyone thought we could actually escape."

                "Who's Adavir?" asked Isaac, trying to see through the gloom.

                "Never heard the name," Crystal admitted, and the rest of the Djinn found interesting wall patches to study.  Ryan gulped and forged on ahead.

                "Adavir's the one ruling Lunpa these days.  He appeared months ago, took Donpa hostage to keep Dodonpa under control, and started us building the fortress.  Once it was done, he put together the army.  Said that there were a group of warriors out there who were planning to destroy Lunpa and he wanted to make sure we were ready to defend ourselves."

                "We weren't going to do anything until he started raiding towns," Jenna insisted.

                "And now what?  Are you going to burn everything to the ground?" asked Ryan, defiantly.

                "No," said Felix.

                "Well, maybe this Adavir guy," Sheba amended.  "How did he just walk in and take over an entire village, anyway?"

                "I told you, he took Donpa hostage.  He doesn't admit it's a hostage thing, but anyone can see it if they want to," Ryan replied.

                "That's the part we're stuck on, I think," said Garet.

                "How can anyone take the leader of a village of thieves hostage without fighting them all first?" asked Picard.

                "He did.  Can't you tell?  He's got those same powers he warned us you do.  Psynergy."

                "I really, really hate my life," Gasp observed.  Not that Luff could hear him right now, having been knocked out cold for the second time in one day, but if the old Djinni was going to be dead weight that Gasp would have to save from becoming violet paste, then he'd listen to rants, too.

                "You too?  We could start a club," Iron grumbled.  Gasp just had to flutter above the reach of the malevolent armor, while Iron kept on having to dodge metal feet that remained heavy, even though there wasn't anything inside them.

                No one noticed as the blade descended towards Rime, although Rime himself gave the edge his full attention.  It was probably instinct that saved him, but he liked to think that Mercury was watching out, too.  Blue seals burned in the air and spiralled onto the armor, emblazoning themselves on the wide plates.  The swinging arm froze.  It fell to the floor with a clang, heralding a metallic avalanche as the rest of the suit fell apart.

                Eventually he remembered to start breathing again, around the point when his vision started to go black.  "Wait a minute…" Rime realised.  "What the Hail did I just do?"  He had unleashed his Djinni power, like all the others had done so far, but it was just a Psynergy seal…

                When the torso plating collapsed, a single wooden stick was revealed.  Rime cleared it from the metal, and saw cloth wrapped around one end- a torch, then, but it didn't look at all burnt.  The Djinni unwrapped the strip of whitish fabric curiously, as if the battle raging around him was something that only happened to other people.

                A small purple crystal tumbled out.  Rime knew it instantly.  A fragment of Psynergy stone.

                A totally new concept was slowly growing in the Mercury Djinni's mind.  For the first time in centuries, he was actually the most dangerous fighter in the battle.

                "Yagh!" Spark shouted as a battleaxe chopped the end of his flame-tail.  "Ooh, oh, _Spirits_ that hurts…"

                Rime might have been more aptly named 'Boil' at that moment.  Most of the Djinn swore he was steaming as he leapt onto a pile of twisted metal and screamed "_Tremble in your boots and fall to your knees before your oblivion, mortals!_"

                "There's nothing in their boots, they don't have knees, and they're probably not mortal," Iron pointed out, but rather than become the first target, he put up a shield around Rime and ran for cover.  He didn't get too far before discovering just how many suits of armor this enemy had collected.  A new army of them were marching on the hall where Rime was now wreaking havoc.

                Iron glanced back and checked how long it took for Rime to bring down a suit, and how many were still coming.  The answer was a rather large 'we're going to be carpeting in about ten minutes'.  They needed backup, somehow, and Iron was going to find it.

                "Oh, that _would_ be it," Garet growled, leaning back against a rough wall.  "I'm really starting to dislike Adepts."

                "You're an Adept.  _I_'m an Adept.  _We're all Adepts_," Jenna reminded him, scowling.

                "You don't count," said quickly.  This, like many other snap-corrections, was precisely the wrong thing to say.

                "Don't _count?!_" she fumed, and it was only her lack of Psynergy that kept the capital off the word.

                "Leave him alone, he's been half dead for hours," Ivan insisted.

                "And now I'm hallucinating.  The dwarf came to my defence," Garet joked.

                "Okay, he's an Adept, but what about this anti-Psynergy field?" asked Felix.  All the Adepts turned on Ryan, who wished he could fit between the bricks in the wall.  They didn't need awesome powers to glare like champions.

                "I don't really know.  His core chamber is practically empty except for the torches.  Actually, I've heard that he'll never let anyone put them out.  Some people say they're guarded at night," Ryan volunteered.

                "Inside the chamber, is he capable of Psynergy?" asked Picard.

                Ryan shuddered.  Yes, oh yes he was.  Didn't they know?  Couldn't they see why he was so scared of them?  Couldn't they look through his eyes and see the memories inside his head, the roaring fires and smoke and shadows, the terror of Psynergy running wild?

                "…Yes," he breathed, because anything else would have been too much to stay calm.

                "Mars Adept," Mia decided.  "He can use the torches to create a bubble of Psynergy inside the blocked field, and the field itself is probably from a fire somewhere else."

                "That's a talent I wouldn't mind," Jenna remarked.

                "You're already talented," Garet said smoothly, trying to make up lost ground.

                "Come _on_," Isaac groaned.  "Do you see me and Mia gushing like that at a time like this?"

                "Of course not," Garet replied.

                "But we do know you just wait until none of us are looking," Jenna added.  She didn't, but when Isaac turned as red as their missing Mars Djinn, she knew she was right on.

                "So, what are our chances of taking this guy?" asked Mia, looking around the group.  "We've got no weaponry, no Psynergy, no Djinn, not a single thing in our favour except surprise and experience."

                "Let's go," said Garet, grinning.

                "Wait," said Sheba.  "Bane, where are all the other Djinn?  You still haven't said."

                "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever get around to that.  The rest of us are here, spread through the fortress, doing our parts and so forth.  In fact, if Spring's done his job as well as I expect, your weapons and armor should have been found by now.  If Luff's managed to get something right, we know where Adavir is, and everyone else is causing various types of chaos, which is second nature to all Djinn anyway," he finished proudly.

                After a moment's silence, Picard asked, "What do you mean, _second_ nature?"

                "I'll consider that remark the foolishness of youth," Bane replied icily.

                "Youth?  What are you talking about?  I am more than…"  The Lemurian noticed that suddenly he had everyone's attention.  "Never mind, my age is not important.  We have to find the other Djinn or find and defeat Adavir.  There are no other choices we could make now."

                "He's right," Isaac agreed.  "Ryan, you seem sensible, but you're also a soldier.  Mix those two together and lead us where you want to go the least, because I'm sure we'll find the Djinn when we get there."

                Ryan sighed and waved for them to follow him.  Eventually, he couldn't help asking.  "So what sort of pay scale do heroes have?"

                "Sometimes they credit you with saving the world," said Felix.  "Got to be careful how you go about it, though."

                "Also, nothing with multiple heads is ever on your side," Jenna added.  "Important tip."

                "And _this_ is for all those times when I was helpless to do anything during the battle with Valukar," Rime told another armor-minion as he sealed it and watched the parts collapse.  "And _this_ is for all the times that the _other_ Djinn got to help in the battle with Valukar, and _this-_"

                "I'm starting to worry about him," said Fizz.

                Hail shrugged.  "Arr, he be finally findin' 'is inner pirate, that are all."

                "I do _not_ have any sort of inner pirate," Fizz insisted.

                "Did I say ye did?  Nay, ye healer types are na made fer real piratical stuff, but I knew right off that Rime were a natural.  'E's obsessed with vengeance, which are almost as good as treasure."

                "I resent that.  I might not be naturally piratical, but I'd be as good at it as anyone else.  Who says healers have to be one-dimensional?"

                "What're ye going ter do, take lessons?" asked Hail.

                A steel axe quietly introduced itself to the growing argument by cutting six inches into the floor between them, nearly hacking off Hail's tail.  "Ye barnacular scum, Hail'll be havin' yer helm fer that!" she shouted, spinning and freezing its legs in place with an ice-water blast.

                "Hail… there's rather a lot more of them…" said Fizz, who could see around their attacker.

                "…How many are ye speakin' of?" asked Hail, who was a pirate, but couldn't always suppress her more cautious instincts.

                "Um… well, do pirates have a vernacular term for a hundred?"

                "Arr.  That'd be 'a bleedin' army'," said Hail, slowly.

                "Ah.  A few bleedin' armies, possibly," Fizz reported.  "How about a piratical way to retreat?"

                "Never come up."

                "Somehow I'm not surprised…"

                "Okay, who can take armor on, they're just metal, so lightning's good, but there's nothing to shock inside, so not so good, and ice won't do more than keep them in place, I either need really fast rusting powers or someone who can bash or just melt them right down- that's the way to go, melting, gotta find more Mars Djinn, where _are _they, can't be too far…"

                Iron chanted these thoughts and many others as he sprinted through the corridors, looking for backup to fight the growing forces of formerly decorative knights coming after them.  He skidded to a halt at a crossroads, paused to pick a direction at random, but before he could move more than a step, a sound at the back of his mind caught his attention.

                It wasn't really a tune, it was more like the idea of a melody that he imagined he could hear.  But when Iron ran back and leapt onto a windowsill, it grew a bit louder, and he realised its source.  A Djinni, it had to be.  No one else could play like that.  And if it was, it had to be Fugue.  And Fugue's power…

                "Fugue!"  Iron shouted.  "_Fugue!_  You blasted Mars Djinni, _listen_ instead of just blaring away for a second!"

                "What do you want her to do?" asked Haze, who was swooping by.

                "Blare louder!" Iron called back.  Haze, not bothering to wonder about the eccentricities of Venus Djinn, flapped back and dove to the Djinn gathered at the gate.  Fugue didn't notice until Dew bounced off her head, and then Haze delivered the message.

                Uncertain at first, Fugue gathered all the power she could summon and played again.  "Not going to do it," said Dew.  "There has to be something missing, Fugue, you're just not going to get through like that."

                "What do you expect me to do?!" Fugue demanded.

                "I don't know.  You're the musician," said Dew.  "I'm just here to lead.  I don't _do_ much."

                Fugue thought for a moment.  She had played as well as she could with the powers of the Djinn, but still couldn't pierce stone, and somewhere in there her friends were counting on this.  What else was there to music except playing?  It was ridiculous, it was impossible-

                It was obvious.

                She started again.

                "And _this_ is for all the times those monsters used Psynergy attacks even after I sealed them because they were some kind of natural ability instead of actual _casting_!"  The heaps were getting deeper.  Rime was starting to hope he might manage to just barricade the hall off from more enemies, but no, they were breaking through just as fast.

                "Well… there are worse deaths," said Squall.  "Of course, the last time I was in a fix like this, I got through just fine, because of the whole immortality thing.  How about you, Shine?  You know more about death, don't you?  What's it like?"

                "It's precisely the sort of thing I don't want to talk about," Shine replied. Squall waited, knowing she was more patient.  "…I don't actually _know_, of course… but what I do know wasn't so bad, I guess."

                "That's good," said Forge.  "I'd hate to think the end of my existence might be unpleasant."

                "Does anyone else hear that?" asked Mold.

                "Hear what?"

                "…I'm not sure.  It's sort of like…  Well, there's something Djinni about it, but it sounds more like… singing…" said Mold, uncertainly.  A red spark floated past him, and then a few more.

                Fugue's voice, powered by her natural powers, rippled through the stone and echoed through halls, a victorious ballad without words that struck the ever-marching knights as hard as cannonfire.  Music flooded them all, and -first slowly, then in groups- the suits collapsed in a clattering crescendo of metal.

                "Wow," said a voice, when all was quiet again.  Geode emerged from an armor dune.  "And I didn't even get a chance to hit 'em.  Good thing you warned us, eh Squall?  You guys want me to take down that door over there?  Mold?  Shine?  Hello?"

                "Of course," said Shine, clearing his throat, "there's always the last-minute rescue.  Now, who says we finish this ordeal and get back home?"

                "It's about time!"

                "This guy is toast."

                "Hopefully no more rescues will be needed…"

                "Arr!"

                "Fizz, it's just not you."

                "Whatever."


	10. Bane of Existence

**Chapter Ten: Bane of Existence**

                Dew watched the man impassively.  By careful manipulation and through the considerable advantage of not caring what sorts of obstacles her passenger met with on the way down, Waft had managed to get one of the blastbow snipers to ground level, and had brought the weapon, too.  Flower and Granite were looking it over right now, and Dew was met with an odd decision.  She'd never had to deal with prisoners before.

                "I never knew, I swear it, I never would have shot Ian," said the man.

                "Bit strange that a pacifist would be part of something so elite as to be trusted with weapons like these," Dew remarked coldly.  She could do cold easily, and it was easy cover for her uncertainty.

                "I'm a good shot, that's all.  They told us we were just going to keep people out.  If I had known I would have shot Harren first, never-"

                "Never say never again," Dew ordered him.

                "I ne…  I didn't mean for it to happen!"

                "And you think that's enough for mercy, do you?" asked Dew, evenly.

                "W-what are you going to do to me?" he stammered.

                "Well, there's a bit of disagreement on that, but I _can_ guarantee it won't be pleasant.  I was thinking start with the noose principle, but instead around your feet.  We'd anchor it at the top of the wall, throw you over and let you aim for a window, maybe," Fury suggested.

                "But… but…"

                "What do you think, Dew?" asked Serac.  "Get rid of him now?  He won't be the only one not to survive this day, I'd bet.  …Plus Ian, of course."

                Dew stared the prisoner down- not that it was hard, since he was crouched already.  The sniper looked up at her, and she was almost surprised by the very real terror in his face.  "Ian was like a grandfather to me..."

                _Grand_father?  Dew looked closer, at the features hidden under a helmet, and realised that 'man' was pushing the definition.  This soldier was young, practically a kid.  All humans, short-lived as they were, might as well have been kids compared to Djinn, but it still came as a surprise.

                Kid or not, Ian wouldn't have wanted anyone to die for him.  Even the one who had fired the shot, this Harren person.  Dew looked at the wound on the sniper's shoulder.  "That's a nasty gash."

                "Crenulations will do that to a person," Waft agreed, and perhaps she had noticed the change in Dew's attitude, because she sounded a bit ashamed.

                "Right," said Dew.  "Get this man to the sanctum, patch up his arm, and then get him working on a plan to remove all pointy parts of the fortress.  The thing looks like a cross between a wedding cake and a sea urchin, for Mercury's sake."

                "…Aye, cap'n," said Tonic, after only a moment's pause.  "Oi, you two."  

                He was looking at a couple of people at the edge of the villager crowd, most of whom were rather confused at this point.  They had walked all of a couple hundred feet, lain siege to their own castle, and then not moved for a few hours.  Things had been happening, and when Ian was shot there had been some excitement, but mostly they had been told to sit tight and wait for the little blue frog-crab creature to tell them to charge.  It was like the kind of dream that results from pineapple chili.

                "…Us?" a woman repeated.

                "No, just a couple of people who look like you.  _Yes_, you, get this kid here bandaged, and then get back quick.  It's time to _do_ something, I'm sure," said Tonic, glancing back at Dew.

                "I hope so," she agreed.  "Once that gate-"

                _Clongk__!_

                It was a sound that Dew had been waiting to hear for too long in her opinion.  Flint's stone-cutter attack hacked through the last of the locks and hinges and whatever else the Lunpan soldiers were using to seal themselves inside the fortress, safe from most attacks.

                "At last those bars are gone.  Things are near-inflammable," Char grumbled, leaning against the charred stone.

                "Inflammable means you _can_ set it on fire," Fugue pointed out croakily, her throat sore after her singing performance.  She hardly noticed the broken gate; her thoughts were still more on whatever Djinn had needed that music, and hoping that they were all right.

                "Flammable, then," Char amended.

                "Also means you can set it on fire," Fury remarked cheerfully.

                "The bloody things won't burn, all right?!" Char snapped, but breathed out a sparky sigh and calmed back down.  "Now what, Dew?  We've been waiting long enough, are we going to go in fighting and rip the place apart, or what?"

                The realisation was still washing over Dew that if she really was leading in Ian's place, she should try to follow his ideals, too.  Even when Adavir took over, Ian had been content to slide into the anonymity of the village and take care of the people.  They were really what this was all about.

                "No," Dew decided.  "It's important that they're here, to do what they have to do, but they don't have to do this.  We can do it instead, and probably save lives while we're at it.  Theirs and the soldiers, because the soldiers are them too, just the ones that were picked out of the crowd and put in armor and told that they could only trust themselves."

                "Oh, no," said Tonic.  "Dew!  Dew, snap out of it, you're going like Bane and Luff and Crystal and Spring.  No more philosophy today or you're going to end up a leader and you might never shake it off."

                She laughed and looked over at him.  "Right.  It was just a phase anyway.  Let's kick the hell out of some bad-guy-Adept tail, guys.  …Softly."  Dew grinned, though with Djinn it's hard to tell.  "But not too softly."

                "Bloody hellfire," Tinder sputtered, and ducked back around the corner.  The wall opposite the Djinn seemed to burst like parts of it had been made from popcorn, and stone dust floated down to the floor.

                "What in Jupiter's name was that?" demanded Gale.

                "Looks like those guys we helped deal with outside weren't the only ones with blastbows," Tinder reported.

                "Oh, great," Steam muttered.  "Look, the part about letting you Jupiter Djinn fly us up through the windows, that I got, and how we were going to come at the throne room and hit that Adavir guy from an unexpected angle, that make good tactical sense, but where does getting repeatedly ventilated come into this?"

                "I didn't plan for more of these things.  Dew's buddy back there, Ian, he didn't even know about the snipers, so I figured there couldn't be too many of them or someone would have found out," Gale replied.  He glared at Steam, who wasn't impressed.  "It was sound reasoning!"

                "Sounds deafening, actually," Ground said.  "Look, last stands aren't bad, but this is just a boring old corner.  Can't we get them to meet us in the great hall or something?"

                "Why would we go to meet them somewhere else?!" asked Gale, baffled.

                "We wouldn't.  I just meant we'd get _them_ to go," she replied.

                "Most people don't have your sense of drama, Ground," said Reflux.  "Because they're sane."

                "Plan," Fever stated, waving his tail to catch their attention.

                "We know, Fever, we know.  'Run up and burn them.'  Usually it doesn't work, and especially not right now, unless you want to go under the planet and come around from the other side," said Gale.

                "No, I mean a good plan.  One that involves no one dying.  Probably not even them."  The other Djinn were silent.  Fever was speaking in complete sentences that didn't involve random obliteration.  There were only two explanations.  Either he had completely worked out all of his fighting desires in the previous battles, or combat had driven him completely insane, and since the starting Djinni had been Fever, insanity looked like 'normal'.

                Adavir's secondary sniper team was better-disciplined than the ones he had dispatched to break the siege, and less likely to fail miserably, too, but even they were starting to wonder.  After the first wave of shots sent the little red thing into hiding, they had just been listening to frantic whispering.  A moment ago, something red-brown had oozed around the corner following a sort of sparkling sound- sound couldn't sparkle, they knew, but it had.

                "This is absolutely degrading," one voice declared, and a… _thing_ walked around the corner, into firing range.  It seemed to be a wavering mud creature, or what would be left if you splashed something with mud and then took away the thing that had been splashed.  It was also glowing red.

                "Sir?" asked one sniper, uncertainly.

                "I'm sure as hell not taking any chances!"

                "It's good to know _someone_ isn't.  I bet this hurts," said the mud.

                "_Fire!_" the captain shouted, and a chorus of explosions rang out.  Every single bullet hit its mark, splattering red-brown mud in all directions.  

                Underneath the earthy veil, which was just there to show the soldiers where Reflux was after Haze's protection was put on her, the bullets struck, bounced harmlessly away, and the Mars Djinni's power reacted.  Red light swirled around her, and a counterattacking wave of energy bolts filled the hall.  The ones who weren't taken down by the first wave were dropped when they tried firing again.

                "Okay, so it worked," said Reflux.  "That doesn't make it any less digusting."

                "C'mere," Sleet offered.  "I'll wash you off."

                "_Agh__!_  Not Mercury too!  The others were bad enough -no ice, no water, not even high humidity!"

                "Stop whining," said Gale, who was secretly very, very happy that Reflux was the counterattacker, not her.  "We've just earned ourselves a shortcut.  Can't you burn that off, or something?"

                "Mud doesn't _burn_," said Mud.

                "…It doesn't?" asked Reflux.  "Oh.  Well, then, I think I'm ceramic."  The others turned to see the Mars Djinni, who was now plated in a warmly-coloured terra cotta clay.

                "Think of it as armor," Steam suggested.

                "Or penance," Sap added.

                "I'm looking forward to not having to have a body all the time," Reflux grumbled, following the others past the unconscious snipers.  She kicked a few as she passed, and tried to break up some of the more awkward chunks, but it didn't really help.  "Grind, that's what I need."

                "Or Burst," said Spritz, helpfully.  "Force, if it comes to it.  Maybe Pound, too.  Oh, wait!"

                "All at once?" Reflux predicted.

                "…How'd you know?"

                "Or just ask Fever.  He'll probably get it all off in three seconds with a foot of twine and a milk jug," Sap remarked.  "Maybe we've just never given him the right sorts of questions before."

                "You mean… how to take out a hallwayful of snipers with three non-directly-attacking Djinn?" said Sleet.

                "Yeah.  Maybe we should have him work on getting Garet's room clean when we get back to Vale," mused the Venus Djinni.

                "What would he have to work with?"

                "Garet."

                "Oh, come on.  You can't stack _everything_ against him."

                Gale was ignoring all outside distractions, leading the way through crossing and turning corridors that all looked exactly the same.  Either it was intentional, to throw off intruders, or someone had found the world's most boring architect to design this fortress.  But then she turned a corner and some very welcome features appeared.

                "It almost looks like art," said Mold.

                "Arr, if it are not worth stealin' an' linin' the hulls wi' fer buryin' or sinkin' elsewhere, ye canna in'trest a pirate," Hail replied.

                "Well, there is some valuable art in the world," said Fizz.  "But I'd have to say that piles of disjointed armor plates were more modern than old pirate-style treasure."

                "Avast!  Ye're wastin' me time wi' metal when there are a villain ter explain the 'cut' half o' 'cutlass' to, over an' o'er again!" Hail roared.

                "I'm not going to rush in without some reinforcements- Gale!  Just in time!" Luff called, happy to see a fellow senior-Jupiter-Djinni.  You would be too, if there were fewer than a half dozen of your kind on the planet.

                "Just in time to be the reinforcements to the doomed warriors, you mean?" asked Gale.

                "Precisely," Geode agreed.

                "You see…" Mold explained, "that's the throne room down there."  All two dozen Djinn pivoted to see the large wooden doors.  They weren't ornamented or even very imposing, but something had been done with them, very carefully, to suggest that the last person who decided to open something similar to these doors was named Pandora, and she had made the wrong choice.

                "Adavir," Kite snarled.

                "Who?" asked Forge.

                "The Mars Adept who started this whole business," Haze explained.

                "Oh.  Yeah, like Hail said.  The bad guy," Forge agreed.

                "Adept?" Luff repeated.

                "Adept?"  Rime perked up.  They looked at each other.  

                "Two in one day!" the Psynergy-sealing Djinn shouted triumphantly.

                "About bloody time we were done here," said Spark.

                "Geode!" called Luff.

                "Here," Geode answered, saluting with his tail.

                "Knock and see who's home."

                "This has been the longest day of my life," Felix decided as the Adepts finally reached ground level.  The tunnels didn't look much better, but there were windows with orange sunlight shining through in dusty shafts.  "Very, very, very long.  Remember Air's Rock?"

                Jenna shuddered.  "Oh yes."

                "That was about fifteen minutes relative to today," the Venus Adept explained.

                "At least you didn't lose the power to read minds," Ivan grumbled.  "It's worse than going blind."

                "I didn't start with it," Felix protested.

                "Exactly my point," Ivan countered.

                "…That's not even logic.  I'm not sure it's _human_."

                "I take offence," said Bane.

                "Take all the fence you want, I'd settle for just knowing where our weapons are," said Isaac.

                "I'm _looking_ for them.  Somewhere in this infernal castle, Spring's group should have been looking for the treasury and found your weapons by now.  But if they're looking for us and we're looking for them, it could be morning before you're armed again," Bane explained.

                Everyone looked at Isaac, who was faced with yet another tough decision.  They would be in serious trouble if they tried to do anything without weapons or Psynergy, but if they waited to find Spring and their gear, it could be too late to make a difference.

                "Know where you are?" he asked Ryan.

                "Yes," the soldier replied.

                "Take us to Adavir," Isaac commanded.  The others nodded, just slightly, just enough to take some of the burden off Isaac's shoulders.  This would not be a good fight.

                "No, I- hold on, it's around here somewhere - you really shouldn't do that if you're going to try going up those - watch that edge there, it's - _run for it!_"

                When the clattering of metal had ended and all Djinn had been accounted for as a dozen intact creatures, Torch led them out from hiding around the corner.  "Right.  I think we're going to want a plan if we're going to try carrying broadswords up stairs.  And no more shield-surfing."

                Dew led her team of Djinn through surprisingly empty halls, past abandoned rooms, and a kitchen that appeared to have been the decisive battleground for at least four major wars in the last week.  Occasionally they saw a Lunpan soldier in the distance, but not for long- they were running, and not at all interested in fending off intruders.  At one point, they found a hallway that might have once been lined with suits of armor, but now looked like blacksmith's back yard.

                "No marks anywhere," Flower observed.  "This wasn't a battleground."

                "And this thing," said Serac, picking something like an unburnt torch out from between a few plates with his tail.  "There's a Psynergy crystal wrapped up in that fabric at the top, and it's danged hot, too."

                "Adavir's playing with Psynergy, blocking it off and projecting it and who knows what else," Breath realised.  "…And among the Djinn closest to facing him are Fever, Squall, Hail, and Geode…"

                "So no one in those groups will have much time for rational thought in the near future," Waft continued.  "Whereas anyone who can invent torches that project bubbles of Psynergy inside space where they've already _blocked_ Psynergy is going to be somewhere in the insane genius category."

                "I think we should be moving faster," Serac told Dew.

                Several loud chopping sounds echoed off the walls as dust floated down from the ceiling.  The Djinn turned in time to see Flint jump, bounce off the wall, and hack at the ceiling several more times, cutting out a few larger chunks.  "_I_ think we should be moving in a straight line," he explained.

                "Aren't you guys kinda overreacting?" asked Char.

                "You're young," Granite remarked, "so I suppose it's understandable that you don't know everything."  Her tone made it clear that while it was understandable, she certainly didn't approve of a Djinni not knowing everything.  "But in any case when Fever's leading the charge, it's important to get there and throw a bucket of water over him.  Sometimes metaphorically, sometimes not."

                Gravel rained around and occasionally onto Char as she considered this.  "How do you know Fever's leading the charge?"

                Granite looked surprised.  "He's in the room and conscious.  What else do you need to know?"

                Flint carved through several ceilings, aided by Char when they were sure of not blasting the floor above with red-hot stone shrapnel, until the Djinn finally reached the proper floor.

                "Never want to do that again," said Flint, chopping away one last time.  They got through just in time to see the world fall on their heads.

                A short time before this, Geode finished knocking on the door, and two dozen elemental creatures stampeded into Adavir's throne room.  The chamber was sparsely decorated, but managed to look twice as ornamental as most parts of the Elemental Lighthouses.  A high arched ceiling curved down to either side of a long hall that rose up a low line of stairs at the end.  In the middle of the raised portion was a throne, tall, cushioned in Mars-Djinni-red and edged in gold.

                The Djinn noticed all of this, in a roundabout way, but mostly they noticed the man standing in front of the throne, looking like any normal person kept waiting at an agreed-upon meeting spot.

                "You're here," Adavir stated, and seemed to think this summed everything up.  He was much younger than Luff had expected, but just old enough to command respect, and projected the aura of confidence that the Jupiter Djinni had seen in all major combatants in the conflict of good and evil.  "I hadn't expected you, I confess.  The result that seemed most likely to me was that you would simply be eradicated when your Adepts entered the null space.  That would have been quite a neat disposal, too."

                Well, that settled which side he was on in said eternal conflict of the absolutes.

                "Speaking of the Adepts, where have you got them?" Squall demanded.

                "Did I do something to indicate that I was one of those people who answers all of their opponent's questions for no obvious reason?  I don't care much for gloating, really," he replied evenly.

                "None of the modern villains hold onto the old ways anymore," Luff muttered.  "A few millennia ago, villains practically read you their plan just to make you feel more at home in their fortress of terror."

                "Hold on," said Tinder, "if you don't care for gloating, but you're bragging about caring about gloating, shouldn't you vanish in a puff of impossibility?"

                Adavir clapped twice, and the Djinn were suddenly very aware of rows of archer windows snapping open along the walls.  The chorus of clicks was followed by a short flurry of activity, and the ends of metal tubes were pushed up against the spaces, like scorpions lying in wait.

                "How many of those blastbows did you _make_?" Gale asked, exasperated.  "I thought we had dealt with them all already!"

                "Hmm… 'blastbows'… a good name for them.  Thank you, I had been having trouble there."  The Djinn waited for a tense moment, but nothing more happened.

                "I think he was serious about not telling us anything," Sleet remarked.

                "Just wait, he'll crack," Fizz assured him.

                Adavir flexed his fingers and torches lit around the room in various colours, though mostly the usual red-gold of pure flame.  "However, since more of your tiny upstart brethren are approaching…"  He frowned, as though surprised by something.  "I shouldn't have said that.  Perhaps it's a side-effect of being the one with all the power."

                "And having an ego that could sink ships," Rime added.

                "Now you're trying to goad me.  To Mercury with that," Adavir decided, and clapped twice.  A flurry of blastbow fire spread from the walls, bouncing off of Iron and Steam's quickly placed shields.  "Oh, yes, your Djinni powers.  Truly bizarre, that.  Nevertheless…"  The Mars Adept reached out like a conductor beginning a symphony, and in brackets along the walls more flames rose up.  The throne room felt like an oven, and with some surprise, Iron and Steam's powers failed as soon as the torches lit.

                "Brilliant!" said Luff, grinning at the two younger Djinn, as the entire horde of them released their newly-available Psynergy on the walls.  Lightning blasts, raging fires, and savage ice storms lashed at the archer slots while the walls themselves began to crack and crumble.

                Adavir had the luck (whether it was good or bad was debateable) to have an incredibly expressive face.  His eyebrows alone were currently projecting the sort of sentiment it would take a shipful of drunken sailors an hour to accomplish.  He selected a pair of torches, extinguished all the others that were affecting Psynergy, and rolled his hands swiftly through the air, manipulating the forces in the room as quickly as he could cast his own unusual Psynergy.

                The blastbow archers weren't likely to be able to fire through the debris now piled against either wall, but the Psynergy in the room switching on and off in chaotic waves was having the same effect on the minds of the Djinn as a rhinoceros does on wet clay.  Unfortunately, clay can only really be stomped once, and then there's not much left to do to it.  This happened over and over again.

                "You can't… keep this up… forever…" Gasp gasped, trying fruitlessly to use any of his powers.  "And when… you slip… you're _mine_…"

                "Spark!" shouted Rime as the Mars Djinni yelped and collapsed, hopefully only unconscious.

                "I don't have to keep it up forever," said Adavir, flailing madly as he spread the switching tactics to another pair of torches.  The Djinn were practically blurring, so great was the strain.  "Just too long for you to survive."

                "Really?  That's great," said a voice, the only one in the room that sounded totally unconcerned.  Adavir turned his head slightly, and saw Fever sitting on the top of the throne.  "What's your backup plan?"  The Mars Djinni, to whom absolute chaos was simply a way of life, sprung like a cat and kicked like a Xianese master.

                Adavir shouted in fury as the small foot connected.  Fever wasn't all that massive, but Djinn don't obey the same laws of physics as regular people, and it wasn't as similar to a foot as it was to a firebrand.  As he hit the floor, Adavir slapped one hand down and sent flames rolling in at the main cluster of Djinn like the surf rolling in.

                "Eventually," he growled, picking Fever up by the neck, "you're going to have to realise that I will not play your games the way regular opponents do.  I _think_.  I've created weapons that let a regular person slay an Adept from a hundred feet away.  I seal your powers more thoroughly than any force you've ever met before.  I cannot be defeated by ordinary means."

                Realising that he had forgotten something, Adavir turned his glare from the struggling Djinni, whose fiery nature couldn't harm a Mars Adept, to the wider part of the room.  It was a swirling mass of water, the result of Tornado and Drench Psynergies temporarily putting aside their differences for the common good of looking really cool.  It was fighting the firewash, too, and winning.

                "You idiot, we don't _use_ ordinary means," Fever explained scathingly.

                Adavir growled again, hurled Fever with concussive force into the floor, and projected an aura wall much like Flash's Djinni power.  The difference, in this case, was that he extended it from one wall to the other, between himself and the throne room door, and pushed.  A moment later, it was a few inches from the far wall, and only that far because there were Djinn in the way.  The Adept focused his power on one of the extinguished torches, which ignited again.  There was enough power in it to keep the wall solid for an hour at least, letting Adavir focus on other matters.

                "This is not exactly what I was hoping for," Gale muttered, peeking out from behind a ruined pillar that had shielded her from the oncoming wall.  Across the room, she saw that Geode had managed the same thing, but unlike her, he saw it as an opportunity for heroism.  Young elemental creatures these days.

                "Wait until he turns his back," Gale hissed to Geode.

                "Prepare for your reckoning, dastard!"

                "Bloody Venus Djinn don't have any _sense_!" she muttered, dashing out to back him up.  Adavir noticed them instantly -people in comas noticed Geode in full charge in less than ten seconds- and moved quickly.  He was deceptively fast, slipping between Geode's Spire attack and Gale's Flash Bolt, then turned as he passed them, hit them with a disorienting wave of null Psynergy, and followed it with a pair of Fireballs.

                "Why you…" Geode snarled, but his attempt at Mother Gaia was disrupted by another flaring torch.  Not easily dissuaded, Geode harnessed his Djinni power.  Every surface in the room glowed, and then the light peeled away and pulled together into a glowing sphere, as though space had been wrapped around a tiny world.

                "Never want to do that again," said Flint, emerging from a newly-cut hole in the floor.  Adavir heard the voice, sidestepped, and Geode's earth-orb crashed down on the rising reinforcements.  

                "What in blazes?!" Dew shouted, which is fairly severe for a Mercury Djinni.

                "Adavir's turned the other Djinn against us!" Char yelped.

                "No, just bad aim!" Gale called back, taking flight to avoid a fireball.  The Mars Adept was slicing the room with the anti-Psynergy fields from his torches, keeping power around himself while limiting the Djinn to their natural abilities.  It had to be taking incredible concentration, but before she could think of a way to manipulate that toward victory, a Nova rocked her back down to the floor.

                "Fugue, up here!" Dew ordered when she managed to get through the hole.  "One more target for a good aria and that'll be the day's work."

                "Fugue…" Adavir muttered, bringing up a mental list of Mars Djinn and recalling what he knew about that one.  The ruler of Lunpa smiled as a new plan unfolded before him.  The universe did seem to follow some conventions, he had found, and one of them was that there's always another trick to be played.

                Breath carried Fugue up from the floor below and then dove back down again, content to leave this to more suitable Djinn until the room was less like the inside of a volcano.  Fugue tried to ignore the raging inferno of Psynergy and the slightly crazed look on Adavir's face while she summoned her innate power one more time.

                A mighty chord echoed in the high-arched hall, crimson notes flowed toward Adavir like well-organised lava… and reflected off a shining firewall at the same time four more torches erupted, pushing the active-Psynergy bubble to encompass the entire throne room.  The natural powers of the Djinn were sealed away just in time for Fugue's blast to drain their Psynergy reserves as well.

                "Does anyone else think this is just disgusting?" asked Flint.  "I think it's disgusting."

                "_There_," Adavir wheezed.  "It's about time.  Now, can you all just be good little Djinn and burn little you're supposed to?"

                "That depends," said Dew, still defiant and searching madly for a plan.  "Can you raise the temperature of this fortress to something like the core of a star?"

                Adavir's eyes flashed.  The Djinn might have been driving him to insanity, or it had been there all along and they were just good at digging out people's deeper personalities.  "I can try," he replied, grinning.  "_Supernova!_"


	11. Unleash the Fury of the Djinn

**Chapter Eleven: Unleash the Fury of the Djinn**

                "_What_ is _this_?" Salt asked.  "Kraden's lab is tidier."

                "It looks like this is where they store the spare plumbing parts," Eddy added.  He had a point; the room Torch's dozen Djinn had entered was mostly filled with long metal pipes, although there were tools hanging on the walls that no plumber would ever dream of inventing, and rather a lot of other components scattered around the room that didn't look like they had anything to do with controlling the flow of water.

                "I don't think so…" Breeze said slowly.  "I'm pretty sure I saw some of this powder on the floor here in Kraden's workshop for a second or two last year."

                "Only a second or two?" asked Core.

                "Yeah.  Then it exploded."

                "_Get back!_" Torch snapped at Coal and Core.  "Whoever was working in this room left in a hurry, which either means they were needed desperately to weld something or there was trouble on the way, which means Djinn.  We've got to be close."

                "Hold on," Whorl called, flapping by the wall.  "This looks a lot like a diagram stuck up here… good lord… this is one devil of a weapon they designed… look, you just pull this bit here and it swings the hammer and a little explosion fires a metal thing out of here, like a blowgun with fire or something…"  Whorl noticed no one was paying attention to him.

                "Echo, are you out of your mind?" Torch demanded.  The Venus Djinni was sitting on top of a pile of the metal pipes, doing something Whorl couldn't see from his position.

                "No, just hungry."

                "Djinn do not eat iron!" Torch stated.

                "Djinn don't _eat_," Chill added.

                "Well, I don't know about you, but I've been mortal for the past few hours and I've discovered just how important meals can be, and I'm quite attached to the earthy things," Echo replied.  Metal creaked, and Whorl realised in the near-darkness that he was chewing on one of the pipes.

                "Torch, this is a weapons storeroom.  No harm in letting him munch a few, if it doesn't kill him, because that's what these would do if they were used right.  Or wrong.  In both senses of the word."  No one blinked, and Whorl suspected this wasn't just because Djinn don't have eyelids.  "…Just let him go."

                It was Serac's considered opinion that Adavir had completely, utterly, and without any reservations lost it, if indeed  he had ever had it, and the chances were good that wherever it was he had lost it, it was now floating out to the Great Eastern Sea, where it would sink to the ocean floor.

                Fiery shockwaves ravaged the room, blackening the walls and setting what was left of the carpet ablaze.  He was also hurling more of his imprisoning firewalls around the room, sealing Djinn wherever possible and letting powered torches keep them trapped.  The most were still caught between the first massive fire-power wave the far wall, where the door had also been sealed off to prevent escape.

                Having Psynergy back wasn't doing them any good in fighting Adavir, but at least the Djinn were much harder to hurt now that the source of their life was open to them again.  A Djinni with Psynergy was as close to immortal as creatures on Weyard got.

                "Isn't there any way we can fight back?" Char roared as she dodged behind the stump of a pillar to avoid another volley of fireballs.

                "Yes and no," Geode replied, focusing closely on Adavir's motions.

                "What's that mean?" Char demanded.

                "It means yes," said Geode, using his shovel-shaped tail to hurl a chunk of stone at the Mars Adept– only to have it blown apart before impact.  "…And no."

                "If we could just get him to create one of those null-Psynergy torches and douse all the rest…" Gale muttered, swooping as deftly as any Jupiter Djinni ever had in order to avoid the chaotic blasts that Adavir was unleashing at will.

                "Oh, yes, that's _very_ likely, shall I ask him nicely?" Dew snapped, waiting in the slight protection of the ruins beside Char and several others.  "Why am I even here?"

                "Right now," said Flint, morosely, "you're as much use in battle as any of us."

                "We can always hope he'll bring the room down on himself," Waft suggested as another Dragon Cloud missed Gale and blasted apart one of the chamber's few surviving pillars.

                "At this rate he's more likely to topple the entire fortress," Breath remarked.

                "There's got to be a better plan than just waiting around here for that pyromaniac to run out of firepower, because I don't think he's going to!" Tonic growled.  "So if we can just–"

                "Plan," Dew stated.

                "Exactly," Tonic agreed.

                "No, I mean I've got one," said Dew, sounding slightly faraway.  "Yes… I think Ian would have liked it, too… I'm guessing, but if anything could work…"

                "Does everyone have to keep their secret plans secret, or is it a preference thing?!" Lull barked.

                "Thanks for volunteering!" said Dew brightly.  "And I'm not going to talk about it where our mortal nemesis can overhear, so just help me with this thing and we'll get going."

                "Dew, that's one of Adavir's torches," said Lull, eyeing the object Dew had just grabbed with her tail.

                "Delicious irony, too," Dew agreed, and with a little reluctance the Jupiter Djinni fluttered up to take hold of it from the top, as it hadn't yet been lit.

                "Where are we going?" asked Lull, conversationally.

                Dew nodded to the other hiding Djinn in a way that said _Distraction, please_ in a universal language, and they charged out of the minor haven like a multi-coloured avalanche, only louder.  "Down, up, and around," Dew replied, and raced for the hole in the floor.  They dropped through and Dew didn't let the impact shake her.  With Lull's aid, they raced down the hall and further, searching for stairs back up to the throne level.  It was a million-to-one chance, and everyone knows those always work.

                "Something tells me that this plan isn't nearly as safe as it seems," Eddy remarked.

                "It seems safe?" Core repeated.  "Wow, you've got no idea what we're doing, do you?"

                "Not really," Eddy admitted.  "The part about coming back down to this room I get."  He glanced apprehensively at the wide dish that had once held a massive fire, the one that had been blocking all their Psynergy.    "But why you're packing bags into the hole in the wall, I don't know."

                "It's a bit late to be trying to stop the flow of water," Vine agreed.  "Partly because there isn't much of one now, and partly because this floor's flooded already."

                "It's not like we're going to be able to fix things," Eddy continued.

                "You'd be surprised how good Mars power can be at fixing things, Eddy," Torch remarked, checking the line that hung out of their sack-barricade to make sure it didn't fall into the water.

                "And the stuff we carried out of the weapons storeroom?" Breeze asked.

                Satisfied, Torch turned to smile in a terrifying way at the few other Djinn in the room.  "Let's just say that there's a very good reason most of the others refused to come in here, although it's just as well that they're preparing a couple more hallways above us."

                "Why can't you say more than that?" Vine asked.

                "Because we've got to run very fast now," said Torch, focusing.  The end of the cord flared and started burning its way up to the bursting-full bags of black powder.

                Eddy grinned in comprehension.  "Oh, I get it–"

                Torch hit him at a run and kept sprinting, Mercury Djinn in tow.  "_Now as in now!_"

                The shocks rolled up through the entire fortress, shaking shields, torches, and tapestries from the walls and rocking the battlements to bits on the highest turrets.  Dew was thrown worse than she had been since Venus Lighthouse, and with her feet still gripping the tall torch-bracket, Lull was taken to the quaking floor as well.  The glassed windows shattered.

                "What in Jupiter's mighty name was _that_?" Lull sputtered.

                "I don't know, but I hope it was one of our ideas," said Dew, rolling back to her feet.

                "I hate today," Lull remarked, taking hold of the torch again.

                "Almost over," Dew assured her.

                "As long as there are staircases to drag this thing up, it's not over enough."

                Isaac was lying on his back, wondering if the world had just coughed, when he noticed the chaotic clattering of metal striking stone over and over again coming from a hallway connected to the one Ryan was leading them down.  It was hard not to notice it, since the cacophony lasted for at least a minute after the shaking stopped.  The Adepts looked at each other in uncertainty– had they just heard a battalion of knights fall down a set of stairs, or something worse?

                "How hard – I mean, really – just how bloody hard can it possibly be for you lot to get a pile of Psynergy-strengthened gear from a treasure room to the main floor of a fortress?"

                "We passed the main floor, Spring."

                "…Really?"

                "_Yes!_  About twenty minutes ago!"

                "Quiet, Smog, I'm talking to Quartz."

                "Hello?" Garet called, and then looked around sheepishly.  It seemed like a silly thing to say, but no one could think of anything better.

                "Hey, that sounded familiar."

                "I think it was your blaze-haired friend."

                "_Garet!_"  Corona and Ember came rushing around the corner, dragging armaments with them and leapt into the Mars Adept's arms.  "Where've you been?"

                "I see Bane managed to not get you killed."

                "Which is a good thing."

                "You've looked better."

                "You've looked less dead."

                "And we're including times when you needed Tinder fast or you _would_ have been dead."

                "Except for one or two battles."

                "Like with Sentinel."

                "Anyway, good to see you again."

                "Can I keep your boots?  They fit really well, or they would if they were twenty times smaller."

                By this time, the rest of the Djinn in Spring's group had emerged from the other hall, several of them dragging a sort of sled made from shield on which all their weapons and the rest of the equipment they had brought on this venture were piled.

                "It might not have the power it did," said Quartz, stepping up to Isaac with a longsword held reverently on her tail, "but the Sol Blade is yours again, Isaac."  He grasped it carefully, feeling the perfection of form even without Psynergy rushing through its edge.

                "Ryan?  This is the end, right?" asked Isaac, still a little mesmerized by the shining sword.

                "Yes it is," Ryan agreed, trying not to sound worried.

                Isaac looked at the others.  Jenna and Picard looked like they had been reunited with old friends, the Tisiphone Edge and Mythril Blade back in their hands.  Ivan, Sheba, and Mia held the Staves of the Fates at the ready, Felix was again the perfect image of dour and reluctant hero with Excalibur, and Garet, his old friend Garet, was ready and waiting to incinerate things with the Fire Brand (despite its plain look when not raging with unquenchable fire).  It was time.

                "Show me the door we want," Isaac proclaimed.

                Ryan looked uncomfortable.  "That one," he said, pointing to a door shielded with a sparkling red wall.  What little heroic momentum Isaac had gathered deflated.

                "Unreal," Ivan muttered, poking it with Atropos' Rod and eliciting a spray of sparks.

                "That was one hell of a Nova he just cast!" Char roared, hunching over and trying to cover her horn-ears with her feet.

                "I don't think that was Adavir," Breath said slowly.  She could feel another rumble now, more than aftershocks, and it was growing in strength.

                "Whatever it was, I'm just glad that he's staying by the throne instead of coming out into the room to scorch us at close range," said Geode.  "Why do you suppose that is, anyway?"  Geode peeked over a jagged block that had fallen from the arching ceiling.  The Mars Adept still stood on the low dais at the far end of the hall, hurling fireballs at Gale.  Realising that this was an opportunity to do something so selfless it bordered on psychotic and he was letting it go by, Geode leapt out into the blazing clear.

                "What on Weyard–?!" Gale snapped, seeing the Venus Djinni leave his cover.

                "Distracting him, same as you," Geode replied firmly.  "Or maybe wearing him down.  What _are_ we doing, exactly?"

                "Wearing him down seems to be a losing strategy," Gale remarked as Adavir started a maniacally joyful Heat Juggle.  "He's feeding off his own power.  The power creates fire creates heat gives him power," she listed darkly.

                "Geode, I don't think you should be standing there," Breath called as the Venus Djinni began dodging and rolling to avoid incoming fire orbs.  The shaking was really very noticeable now.

                "I know what I'm doing," he insisted.

                "No you don't!" Breath yelped. 

                "Breath, don't distract–"

                The only comparison Gale could think to make –and she was the only one who could really say what it was like, being above the blast instead of in it– was to say that if Aqua Rock had exploded, it would have looked and felt a lot like the torrent in Adavir's throne room.  Water burst through the first hole like a solar flare and blasted it further, until a long canyon was cut through the hall.

                The only aspect that could rival that sudden deluge was the steam as hundreds of torches were doused in a hissing storm.  The room was thrown into darkness that remained until the final disastrous moment, when the damaged walls, floor, and ceiling began to give way.  Light fell in through the broken roof, fragments of wall crumbled, and dust would have filled the air if not for being thoroughly soaked.

                Eventually the rumbling ended.  Adavir, whose dais remained untouched by the wreckage, let flames encircled his hand, and raised it to search the ravaged room.  Little of the floor was uncovered by splinters, shards, and blocks of stone that glistened with wetness in the dim light.  The Djinn were nowhere to be seen.

                Adavir sighed.  "That was worse than I anticipated," he murmured.

                "Worse?" as voice groaned.  "You… make sound… like it's over."  A shape was crawling on top of a smashed pillar.

                "Serac, aren't you?  Yes, I think it is over.  Unless the rest of your friends have survived this catastrophe."  Adavir waved at the ruins with a satisfied smile.

                "Strange," Serac wheezed.  "You sounded brighter before.  Your fires are _out_.  We might not be able to cast a thing, but we've got Psynergy.  You think a ton of rock is going to kill a Djinni?  Or do I have to define _immortal_ for you?"

                "Nevertheless, they remain trapped," Adavir countered.  "I can deal with them when I see fit."

                "_Most_ of us," Gale corrected him, fluttering down from above.  "And you've got to handle the two of us now.  How long before we recharge enough to really start fighting back?"

                Someone knocked at a side door.  Adavir gestured at it and the hinges burned red before flowing out of their sockets, letting the doors topple to the floor.  A single soldier came through and saluted nervously, seeing the devastation.

                "Sir," he said.

                "Oh, good.  Bring in the riflemen, would you?" he asked pleasantly, smiling like a snake.

                Dew and Lull staggered their way down the armor-strewn corridor to the far end, where the main entrance to Adavir's hall was blocked by a rockslide.  Several Djinn were staring at the stone in frustration, wondering how to get back inside, but turned as the clattering of a torch approached.  "Well," Dew said, "at least we already know walls don't stop it."

                "You haven't told me what _it_ is yet," Lull muttered.

                "Spark!" Dew called.  "Are you there?"

                "Here," said the Mars Djinni, still blinking away the shock of the blast.

                "I need you to do something… improbable," Dew said, and explained her idea.

                "There's no way that could work," said Spark flatly.

                "Not really… but if you can even get the tiniest fraction of it started, then that'll give you room for a little bit more, and you'll keep on building on your own power until we've got our own blaze."

                "That's insane," Squall commented.

                "Like Bane said– at the moment of destiny, no one cares," Dew countered.

                "I'm sold," Squall said, nodding.

                "All right…" said Spark.  "But I'm not promising anythi–"

                What surprised him was how _fast_ the process worked.  Just as Dew said, Spark tried with all his might to use his Djinni power, though without one of Adavir's torches it shouldn't have been possible.  And in some infinitesimal way, the Blaze of Glory began its flickering birth, because he was able to push a little further, which let him push further until a shaft of crimson-white light was shining on the bracket and red angel's feathers swirled onto it before rising up as a red-gold beacon.

                Even Dew was ready to treasure this fire.

                "There's a problem with the riflemen, sir," said the soldier, still standing at attention.

                "What?" Adavir demanded.  "The rifles are gone.  As is the entire supply of blasting powder."

                "What?  Where could they have gone?!"

                "We think they were eaten, sir."  Adavir roared in fury, and the soldier waited until his lord finished before continuing.  "I encountered the rest of the troops on my way here, sir.  We'd like to ask a question."

                "Yes?" Adavir growled.

                "They're all outside now, but it's still an important distinction– are we quitting, resigning, or deserting?" Ryan asked in total earnestness.

                The ruler of Lunpa turned back to his throne and slammed his fist against the back, knocking open a compartment and drawing from it the most compact blastbow any of them had seen.

                "You're dying," he answered, and pulled the trigger.  It would have been a supreme evil-villain line, but was rather ruined by the orihalcon blade in the bullet's path, which sent Adavir's shot careening into the darkness.

                "Isn't it fun how we just never seem to go away?" asked Garet conversationally as Isaac levelled the Sol Blade at Adavir's throat.

                "You're bluffing," said Adavir, not even raising his chin to keep from getting scratched.  "You're impossibly weak."

                "Try us.  _Please_ try us," Felix suggested.

                Gale had guessed right, Adavir had been drawing strength from his own torches in a way that made his stores of Psynergy dozens of times greater than they should have been, but even now, he had consumed very little.  One more firewall was produced with the flick of a finger.  It wasn't strong enough to keep them sealed, but it did blast all nine heroes off their feet and several metres back.

                He switched chambers of the revolver and was aiming to finish off the remarkably resilient Lemurian when a spire of ice grew from the floor, nearly capturing him as it did.  Serac's Djinni power.  With a shock, Adavir realised that someone else had created a Blaze of Glory, close enough that it was affecting the distant half of the hall.  He quickly spotted three unbroken torches among the wreckage and lit them, fighting Spark's beacon with his own.  They were quick, but Adavir had invented these Psynergies.

                "Can the two of you defeat me now?" asked Adavir, though he could no longer see the Djinn.  "Do you dare to enter my circle, even to save your friends?  …I thought you might not.  Alas."

                "I will," said another voice, and a small red shape stepped within the light.

                "Ah.  Shine, unless I'm mistaken," said Adavir, fidgeting with his revolver.

                "You are."

                "What?  But your brave folly gives you away, Djinni."

                One of the three torches suddenly darkened as a howling wind echoed about the room.  Adavir raised a hand to light it, but the current remained strong, and he had to fight to keep it alive.  Another torch frosted over and was encased by ice that threatened to engulf the flame, but Adavir still had the power to try to resist that, too.  Serac and Gale were being held at bay.

                "One more, Djinni," Adavir taunted.  "Can the might of Mars conquer a torch?"  He fixed his eyes on the third, still burning strong in the darkness, and smiled.

                A shining globe that reflected the ruined chamber obliterated it like a matchstick in an avalanche.  "Here's a hint," Geode offered the other Djinn, still dripping.  "If Breath ever tells you not to stand somewhere, don't stand there."

                Spark's beacon held sway over the whole of the room, now.  Adavir let his arms fall, sapped of his strength.  "I'll give you a hint to my name, Adavir," said the lone Mars Djinni.  "You obviously learned all about us before we ever came here.  So maybe you know our battle-cry?"  The Mars Djinni leapt into the air and flared, as incandescent as a red sun.  "_Unleash the Fury of the Djinn!_"

                Scarlet spirits swirled around Fury like a ring nebula before gathering and streaming forth at Adavir.  One by one they dove through the Mars Adept, striking blows that left no mark but were dealt directly to the soul.  The fiery wave passed, and still Adavir kept his feet… but one more remained.

                As transparent as diamond reflecting the sunset, the spirit of Ian stood before Fury, an implacable champion.  He strode forward, over the fissures in the stone without pause, until he faced Adavir.  His fear shown in Ian's aura, the ruler shied away, but not swiftly enough.  Ian raised his right arm–

                _Smack!_

                –And dealt a slap that sent Adavir sprawling.  Red sparks seemed to slither out of him and take to the air before bursting like tiny fireworks.  Ian turned to face Ryan, who had pulled himself up by then, winked briefly, and then faded into the dark.

                The Adepts, who had recovered from the scorching collision, surrounded Adavir's prone form.

                "Is he dead?" asked Garet, sounding a bit disappointed.

                "No… but there's something strange about him," said Ivan, who had enough strength to use Reveal and see through the gloom.

                "His glow is gone," Sheba realised.  "I think Ian took his Psynergy.  No more Mars power."

                "You can do that?" asked Ryan, who had never seen so much power released in one place before, even when Adavir had been making one of his intimidating performances of justice.  At that moment, he was trying to decide which of the Djinn had blown up the floor and which had collapsed the ceiling.

                "Not that we have ever seen before," Picard replied.  "It would have been a useful technique against some of the Mars Clan."

                "Don't look at me," said Fury.  "I was just itching to try my power out; haven't had a chance all day.  That Psy-rip was all Ian."

                "I don't suppose any of you know how to contact souls beyond this world?  Because–"

                Jenna cut Isaac off with one raised hand.  "I hear something," she stated.  Sheba went skipping across the jagged stones– if she had thought about it, she would have been too tired to skip, but no one was energetic enough to remind her.

                At the closed entrance to the hall, she found what it was that Jenna had mentioned.  "_Hello?  Is anyone there?  We heard what happened and the blasted torch has been out for an hour at least–"_

_                "It's been about a minute and a half, Forge."_

_                "Do I look like a Djinni aligned with the element of Caring What You're Blathering About, Gasp?"_

_                "There's no need to be snippy.  Fury's not the only one who didn't get to use her power."_

_                "You had that platoon back on the fourth floor.  Knocked them out cold."_

_                "Oh, big deal, a platoon…"_

With a roll of her eyes, Sheba called out to the Djinn behind the collapsed door, relaying them to the proper Adepts as they came through.  Another dozen arrived through the floor, having climbed and flown their way up through the variously blasted holes all the way from the flooded basements, and soon all seventy-two Djinn were allied with their Adepts.

                Felix nodded at the fallen tyrant.  "We should take him outside.  The Lunpans are going to have to decide what to do with this one."  An unusually severe look on his face, Garet hauled Adavir over one shoulder, then looked at the blocked door.

                "Sheba?" he asked.

                "No problem, Garet," she replied, grinning.  "_Unleash Ether!_"  A charge of Psynergy was returned to the Hero; not much, but easily enough for what his purposes.  Garet raised his free hand toward the great crumbled mass of stone and mortar, and looked at the others in a way that managed to relay the statement: _I told you right from the beginning this was the way to go._

                "_Pyroclasm__!_"

                Gale and Geode sat on the roof of a Lunpan home that had been given to the Adepts for the duration of their stay in the city, watching the stars.  It was hard to believe that the entire disaster-adventure-revolution-fiasco had fit into a single day.  That day had felt longer than a hundred years of peace inside Sol Sanctum… but had been so much better (and worse) at the same time that Geode found himself wondering when they'd get to do it again.

                "I'm surprised Adavir's still alive," Gale remarked.

                "Killing's too good for him," Geode growled.

                "Oh, don't sound like that.  We won, didn't we?"

                "I guess so… except for that guy Ian.  I never met him, but you know how it is."  Gale nodded solemnly; the sharing of memories between Djinn could be so strong that it was hard to tell which were your own.  They both knew the village leader as well as Flint or Waft or any of the others.

                "He did what he chose to," Gale began.

                "Don't get philosophical on me," Geode said.

                "You make it sound like a condiment.  You're talking to me, not standing near Garet at dinner."

                "That wasn't much fun either.  Did you see the feast those fortress chefs cooked up?"

                Gale laughed.  "Well, they earned it, didn't they?"

                "_We_ earned it!" Geode protested, but his arguments had less and less feeling in them.

                "We don't eat any more," Gale pointed out.  "And they're still heroes."  She looked up at the vibrant sky, purest darkness and light in a strange, imbalanced harmony.  "Maybe this is our reward."

                "Anyone can see the sky," Geode remarked.

                "That doesn't mean they see it like we do," Gale replied.  They rested in silence a while longer before Gale again broke it.  "You were insanely foolish to go running out in the open back there–"

                "All right already!"

                "And brave and heroic and selfless," she went on mildly.

                "We can wait inside if she hasn't kissed you yet," said Fugue, hopping through the window with Shade following close behind.

                "What?!" Geode spluttered.  "Jupiter Djinn don't even have lips!"

                "Well neither do I," Fugue said, but in some way she still managed to place a kiss on his cheek.  "Good performance today.  Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm not the one with a crush on you.  That's her."

                "I do not!  …Squall does," Gale added nonchalantly, once she had calmed down.

                "Really?" Geode asked.

                "No."

                "Oh, Spirits above and below," Shade moaned, sagging.  "Does this have to go on?"

                "If you wanted quiet, why are you out here?" Fugue asked.

                "I don't," Shade answered.  "I just like complaining about it in the company of friends."

                The three of them began chatting about the new governing of Lunpa.  There were rumours floating about that Ryan was the popular choice for the village guard captain, and other rumours saying that he had locked to door to his room and wouldn't come out until they withdrew the nomination.

                "What is it, Gale?" asked Shade, when he noticed she was still focused on the stars.

                "Just noticing the constellations," she replied.  "Like Iris up there, and Coatlicue in the north and Eclipse over that way… heroes from ages ago, still remembered today."

                "Hey," Geode commented.  "That one looks sort of like a Djinni."

                "A Mars one, too," Fugue noted.

                "What?!  It's Venus!" Geode insisted.

                "I admit it's the right shape, but that's distinctly my tail," Shade stated matter-of-factly.

                "Do I have to toast you to explain the difference between Mercury and Mars Djinni ears?"

                Satisfied that she had dealt with the others long enough for an unnoticed moment's silent glorification, Gale looked to the east, where the horizon was beginning to transform from black to faint white-blue.  She smiled, soothed by the debating voices behind her, and thought: _Unleash the splendour of the dawn._


End file.
